A Certain Place.

Today the lectionary kicked me to one of my favorite stories, in Genesis 28. Jacob is traveling, and he comes across what the Bible calls “A certain place.” I absolutely love that. It’s not a special place. This isn’t the remove your shoes because you’re standing on holy ground kind of place. This is just some random place out in the middle of the wilderness. It’s so unimpressive that Jacob just lays down and goes to sleep.

But, that’s where God meets him. Jacob has this incredible dream, seeing heaven and earth in a whole new light, and hears from God a vision for Jacob’s future. When he wakes up he says “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it!”

The whole scene makes me wonder how many certain places there are in our lives. Where are the places that you least expect God to show up and do something spectacular? Maybe those places are the most Holy. Maybe those places are the places that God most wants to work in our lives. And certain places don’t have to be physical locales either. A certain place could easily be a certain relationship you don’t expect to see God show up. A certain place could easily be a tough work environment. A certain place could be your own anxieties and doubts about yourself. God can show up just about any place that God pleases.

So my encouragement today would be to be on the look out for certain places. We never know when God may have a word to speak to us!

Satisfied.

Every morning, I wake up and read the prayers from the daily lectionary. Every morning starts the same way, with the words from Psalm 90:14: “Satisfy us with your love in the morning, and we will live this day in joy and praise.”

That’s such a beautiful sentiment when it’s a reality. When you can start your day by reminding yourself that God loves you, and that alone should be what satisfies you. Not the things I’m chasing. Not the things I don’t have. Not the troubles that are coming my way. But God’s love should be enough to get me through.

I say should be because any person of authentic faith will tell you that there are mornings that you wake up and the last thing you feel is loved by God. There are mornings where the troubles of life kind of creep in and do their dirty work, kind of like a fog on a mirror. It makes it hard to see the way God is already at work, loving you deep down in your soul.

Luckily, that love is there whether we feel it or not. I for one am grateful that my prayers start each day with these words. I want so badly to be satisfied by the love of God. I want it to be my driving force. I want it to be my sole goal this day. So I pray for it, both on the days I feel it and on the days I don’t.

Satisfy us with your love in the morning, and we we live this day in joy and praise.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone!

I began the year by almost missing my resolution to blog every day on the first day. How’s that for consistency!? But here I am, ready to give you that J-Blog goodness you’ve come to know and love!

I actually started in to a project yesterday, December 31st, to officially have a cycling off season. I sat down with a spreadsheet and made a training schedule for the next three months, to get me to a place where when the weather turns, and I can get back outside on a bike, I’ll be fit and ready. Yesterday I went and lifted weights like a goober. I almost never know what I’m doing when I lift weights, so I tend to just kind of fall behind someone else and do what they’re doing. Today, I woke up and the boys needed to get out of the house, so I went back to the gym to hit up a spin class.

Every. Single. Bike. Was. Taken.

It was kind of surreal. I know that most of those folks are new years resolution-ers, who will likely be gone in a few weeks. But it was really good to have a huge group of people working together on the same goal. I intentionally took it easy, since today was supposed to be a rest day. But still, two days in and I’m feeling good!

I don’t know why it’s so hard to make resolutions stick. Sitting here on January 1st, this feels like it will be super easy. I feel great about all the little improvements that I’m making to myself, so why is it hard to imagine that I’ll still be doing all of this on February 1st? I don’t know what will happen between now and then. A day where the snooze button looks more attractive than waking up? A busy day at work goes off the rails and I don’t have time to get to the gym? My car breaks down? Surely there will be some adversity, but I hope that doesn’t derail the whole thing. Hopefully, taking this journey with you all reading along will help keep me on the path!

What are your New Years resolutions, and how did you do with those today?

I'm breaking up with Facebook

My dearest Mark Zuckerberg,

Full disclosure (do you even need that? I assume you know more about me than I know about myself…): I’m a nerd. I have only ever dated one woman, and she and I are married now. So this is the first time I’ve ever broken up with someone, really. I apologize for how awkward and weird this will likely be. #nerdlife #starwars

You’ve had a bit of a year, haven’t you? You spent some time with Congress, which looked to be as uncomfortable and miserable as I always imagined it would be. I would feel bad for you, except it seems to me after my own reading and research that you kind of needed to be there. It appears that you have been in the business of selling our data. Sure, you’ve always been in that business. But it would appear now as though you have been selling that information about us to some people who, shall we say, wouldn’t be first on our Christmas card list. I for one, started to find that troubling.

Now sure, some will say that having our data out there is nothing new. We shouldn’t be that shocked about social media companies selling our data. And maybe that’s true. But you lied about the amount and extent of how much of our data you were selling, or even just flat out giving away. And I have to wonder, if it was really no big deal to have our data out there, why exactly did you have to lie? If it wasn’t a big deal, why wouldn’t you just tell us about it?

But then, sometime around September, you got hacked. Facebook! You promised us that it was one of the most secured platforms ever, and some dude broke in and stole the information of something like 50 million people. That’s kind of a no-no in the tech industry as I understand it.

Plus, there’s the issue of what Facebook has become. In the old days, when I was in college, it was a cool way to communicate with my closest friends. We would make plans of when to get together, laugh at the crappy photos we were taking on our flip phones, and creep on the girls our friends liked. Now, it would appear that your platform offers you a choice between an endless political debate in which no one is interested in changing minds or having their mind changed, or cat photos. I’m a dog guy, and I’m getting tired of the way your platform handles politics.

So I’m breaking up with you. Sure, a few people will tell me that it’s the way that we connect and communicate, but truth be told I can’t remember the last meaningful relationship in my life that existed only on Facebook. For as much as I don’t think I ever changed anyone else’s mind, I did enjoy some of the political debates I was a part of. But 2019 is upon us, and I’m ready to move on.

But Mr. Zuckerberg, please don’t give up. I believe this platform was well on its way to changing the world, and you somehow lost yourself somewhere along the way. I do actually believe that you are a bit of a visionary, and that if you really sat down and dedicated yourself to the issues that Facebook has, you would be more than capable of fixing them. When you do, I’ll be back.

Nerdily yours,

J

Friday Movie: The Bucket Shot

I believe I posted this yesterday, but it’s worth it’s own repost. This is a great film, and one that I’ve watched a couple of times now. Take a bit of time, grab a bit of coffee, and enjoy the movie!

Push.

Yesterday I had one stated goal: Get some progress done on my sermon.

I did absolutely zero work on the sermon yesterday.

Sometimes finding the motivation to get stuff done is a challenge. I think a lot of it is a matter of determining whether what you’re working on is a simple task, something that needs to be checked off a list, or whether it’s a work of passion. I am much more inclined to do the later.

For instance, while I was procrastinating writing the sermon again today, I came across this movie that I’ve been waiting to see with great anticipation for a while:

And this all brought it in to clear focus for me. What does it look like to have a passion to get that amazing work of art done? What pushes you to go to such depths of effort and work? And how can I view my own work with such passion?

I mean on one level, this week’s sermon is just a sermon. It’s one of many. Chances are likely that no one will remember I preached it even two weeks from now. But on another level, this is what God has called me to do with my life. I have been tasked with speaking about the Gospel of Grace, and this week is a beautiful and glorious opportunity to do just that. On one level it’s just a sermon, but it’s actually much more than that.

What of your work do you need to bring a sense of passion to? How do you find the push to get that work done?

New Years Resolutions

I think I shoot something like 10%.

90% of the time when New Years Eve rolls around, I have absolutely zero desire to make or keep New Years Resolutions. For starters, most people never get around to keeping up with them, and I am certainly no exception. I think my record was I made it to the gym every day until January 29th once. But also there’s something just so arbitrary about January 1st. Why make a change on that particular day when there are so many other days to work on self improvement?

But I think about 10% of the New Years of my life, I’ve come around to wanting to make some kind of improvement in my life, and the timing worked out well to start in the new year. Again, maybe I’ll make it, and maybe I won’t, but this feels like the kind of year that I can make a few improvements.

Improvement really is the name of the game. I don’t want to make a resolution just to make one. I think the best resolutions are those that have some hope of making you a better person, and not just looking like a better person. The gym is a classic example of this. I have made resolutions to go to the gym every day because I want to get healthier, and I have made those same resolutions because I’ve felt like it’s what I want people to see of me.

So what am I resolving to do this year? I am resolving to write more. Writing is something I absolutely love doing, and yet find myself completely incapable of dragging to the front of my priority list. I want to write things that are funny. I want to write things that are inspiring. I want to write things about faith, and the Bible, and the deep life we are called to live. I just want to write.

So, I’ve made this promise before, and failed at it, but I believe in me a bit more than usual. I’m going to blog each and every week day in 2019. I’ve already written a few posts ahead of time in case a day gets away from me I’ll have a cache of posts to load quick and dirty. But my hope is to join you right here on the J-Blog each and every day.

I hope you’ll join me!

Eyes on the Tires.

I always get kind of knocked out about this season of Advent. I think it might just be the least American holiday ever. Instead of Prime Shipping, we get waiting. Instead of instant gratification, we get prophecy. Instead of full scorecards, we get empty mangers.

And yet, I know at least for my own soul and my own spiritual discipline, a season of waiting makes a tremendous amount of sense. I know that my own mind wants to be two or three steps down the road, when I would do so so much better to stay right where I am.

A few years ago a friend of mine took me on a mountain biking trip. I love biking, and even enjoy mountain biking from time to time, but this was some tough sledding! It was really hard to get through the rocks and roots and technical sections of trail. So my eyes had to be just an inch or two off the front wheel of my bike. If I was trying to read the trail too far ahead, there was simply no way I was going to be able to navigate what what right in front of me.

That’s kind of what Advent is like for me. In our worship spaces and in the daily lectionary readings, I am reminded to keep my eyes right there, right where Jesus is about to show up. Waiting seems so counter cultural to us right now, but I think it serves a vitally important function in our faith.

Stand Firm

I was reading the daily lectionary today, a habit that I very badly need to get back in to (here’s to day one!). And there was a little something that popped out to me in a few of the passages:

“If you do not stand firm in faith, you shall not stand at all.” (Isaiah 7:9)

“For this purpose he called you through our proclamation of the good news, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by our letter.” (2 Thessalonians 2:14-15)

I thought it was interesting that the idea of standing firm showed up twice. It is certainly singing all kinds of notes in my life right now, but I think maybe the thing I heard the loudest from God is that standing firm isn’t the same thing as standing still. I want to stand firm for justice, but that means making a move toward bringing good news to the oppressed. I want to stand firm for my family, but that means making a move to being more present and providing for them. I want to stand firm with Jesus Christ, but that’s going to mean moving my feet in the rhythms of his grace.

Stand firm, but don’t stand still.

Of course celebrate the goodness of God’s faith. Of course hold fast to the traditions. But those traditions are calling us to bigger and better things all the time. I think a lot of Christians spend so much time standing up for their faith, “defending” their faith, standing firm, that they actually end up on some kind of spiritual treadmill: they’re doing a lot of work but they’re not really getting anywhere.

So my encouragement to us today is to get off the treadmill. Of course stand firm in the grace of Jesus Christ. Let it be the ground beneath your feet. But don’t stand still in that particular ground. When Jesus Christ is what you stand firm on, there’s a lot of ground to cover.

The Ball in my Backpack

There is a certain subset of nerds out there on the internet that absolutely love to talk about what they carry with them on a daily basis. They will write or talk endlessly on about the kind of bag they carry, what goes in that bag, what they keep in their pockets, and all manner of other things related to Every Day Carry (EDC).

It turns out, I am one of those nerds.

I am sitting this morning in a coffee shop in between meetings working on some sermons and other writings, and I have this little pouch that holds all the cables and adapters I may need throughout a day. A few weeks ago at the National Youth Workers Convention, I found this yellow ball in the exhibit hall that someone was giving out. We tracked down the booth that gave them away and I nabbed one, and threw it in to the little pouch.

Something about it sitting here next to me on the table while I write just seems fitting today. A ball has almost no practical application, a ball is there to be fun. For as much as ministry is a job, and there is work to be done, and sometimes it is difficult and hard work, there is always room for fun. I like the idea of knowing that at a moments notice, I could stop and throw the ball around with someone. Maybe even a total stranger!

So here’s my encouragement to you, particularly if you are in a ministry field. Throw a ball in your backpack. You never know when it might come in handy. At least for me this morning, it is doing the job of putting a smile on my face!

Ten:Ten

Here’s a quick tick-tock of my day today:

7:30- The Alarm goes off. I rebel.

7:45- I give up and rise.

8:30- I drive the boys to the church, drop them off at daycare.

9:00- I check e-mail, clean up the office a bit.

9:30- I sing Christmas carols for pre-school kids.

10:00- Finally get around to morning devotions.

10:20- Some creative time, writing and reading scripture.

11:30- Work on tech for the podcast with Laura.

12:00- Lunch at my desk with YouTube.

1:00- Sing Christmas Carols with the pre-school kids again.

1:30- Impromptu prayer time with the staff.

2:00- Come home to watch boys. They take a nap. I take a nap.

5:00- Dinner time at home.

6:30- Spin class

6:35- Regret being a part of Spin Class

7:11- Dear God, when does spin class end?

7:20- Spin class is over. That wasn’t so bad.

8:00- Time to tuck the boys in to bed.

9:00- I need to blog to keep my streak alive.

Part of the reason I wanted to run through the tick tock of my day was to fill some space in the blog and keep the streak alive. But I also wanted to take a look at my day. Jesus has told me that he would like me to live life and live it to the fullest (John 10:10). I don’t know that I’m always so good at that. Did I live life to the absolute fullest? Have I gone as hard and as deep into the life of Christ as I am able? Were there areas where I could have gone a little bit bigger?

And for what it’s worth, I don’t even think that means that I need to be “on” all the time. I don’t think living life to the fullest is to red-line our efforts every single moment of the day. I think I can live life to the fullest, even when I’m napping on the couch. But I know I can live a deeper life. I know I can live a ten ten kind of life.

How can you live a little bit more tomorrow?

Habits

So I’ve been working for a little while on habits. I think they’re really tricky things, hard to keep the good ones, difficult to get rid of the negative ones. Why is it that I will habitually eat a cookie every time I watch a hockey game, but I can’t bring myself to exercise once a day?

Part of what has inspired this in me is that cycling season is for all intents and purposes over. I might be able to sneak a ride in every once and a while, but looking outside my window those are going to be the exception rather than the rule. I should really move to some place more like California or something. But over the summer, I had a really good habit of riding my bike. I was on at least once a day, sometimes twice. And I felt really good about it! I was in better shape, I had more energy, and I legitimately had a better attitude during the day.

Then the snow fell.

So I’ve been working on setting some new habits. I’ve been working to log all the food I eat, in an attempt to eat better food. I’ve been working to exercise at least once a day, which has been a struggle. I’ve been working to keep up with my morning prayer routine. And it is a struggle! I had a little streak run together of all these things, and then one stressful day happened and I’m back to zero on all of them. But the good news is that one is never that far away from zero, so today is a brand new day.

What kind of habits are you trying to keep up with?

What is it you do?

I’ve been giving some thought in recent days to what it is I actually do. I think just about every student I’ve ever had the privilege of working with has asked at some point something along the lines of “What do you do all day?” I think a lot of people assume that I have youth group from 6-8 on Wednesday nights, and that the rest of my time is spent practicing dodgeball. Which, isn’t entirely false…but I think there’s more to the story.

In truth, there’s a lot wrapped up in what I do. My technical job title is Associate Pastor for Youth, Contemporary Worship, and Media. Basically I’m a youth pastor who also dabbles in video production while pretending to be a rock star. I’ve had that job title for about two years now, and I’m still trying to make sense of holding all three of those ideas together. So for me lately, the two words that have been coming to the fore are “Creative Theologian.” As with just about any theologian, that sounds super pompous and arrogant, so what exactly do I mean by that?

I think at our core, just about every theologian is about studying and proclaiming the truth of God. We each take different tracks to get there, but that’s what we’re after. We want to know the truth, sure, but we want to proclaim that truth to everyone we meet. To be a creative theologian in my case is to say that I will use art, creativity, writing, filmmaking, music, and storytelling as the tool kit to get the truth out there.

And let’s be honest, the world needs the truth of God right now. Not the “you’ll all burn in hell if you don’t believe exactly what I believe” kind of truth that all too often gets shopped around. Those people need to take a seat and relax. I’m talking about the truth that God loves us. God loves you. God has loved you even before you knew who God was. God loves you in spite of yourself. God loves everyone.

My job, is to tell people all about that love. And throw a dodgeball or two in the process.

Is God for Us?

There are as many kinds of Christianity out there as you can possibly imagine. There are super strict sects. There are those who are more loose. There are groups incredibly focused on social justice, and there are others who don’t want to spend time there. There are some who strongly value speaking out and sharing their faith, and there are those who would rather not impose. We’ll come back to this later, but this is actually quite a beautiful thing.

But one thing that tends to stand out for me as a dividing line is how many Christians view God’s interactions with us. Is God angry? Does God disapprove of what you do, your lifestyle? Is God simply unconcerned about us? Has God let the world spin on without much intervention or fanfare?

I don’t think so. My read of the Bible is that God is not only invested in human affairs, God is fundamentally on our side. God desires your success. God desires your growth. God desires your wellbeing. God, simply put, is on your side.

This isn’t to say that everything you do comes with a Divine stamp of approval. Lord knows that a cursory glance at the news would give God plenty to be frustrated with. But in the end God is for you and desires your success. What could you do with that knowledge in your back pocket?

Tools of the Trade: Calendar and Things

Hello friends! 

Greetings from St. Louis! We’ve been on the road since 4:00 AM, and we just got in. But I wanted to post this up to keep the J-Blog streak alive. There will be more posts about the National Youth Workers Convention once it gets underway.  

Last post I wrote about how busy things are and how to best keep our heads on straight during the busy seasons. Today, I want to take a look at two of the tools that help me to keep everything on track. They are Google Calendar, and Things.  

Google Calendar 

Every now and again someone will ask to meet with me or get a cup of coffee or something, and I immediately pull out my phone with an all too predictable dad response: “If it’s not in here, it doesn’t happen.” And while it makes me roll my own eyes every time I say it, it still happens to be true. Now a whole bunch of people use Google Calendar, and could probably help you get a whole bunch more out of it than I do, but there are a few tips that help me stay organized:  

1) Share with your family.  

My calendars are all shared and editable by Sarah. That’s super critical for the two of us, because there are days (see Tuesday and Wednesday above) where we may not see each other in all the hustle and bustle. And with keeping up with our kids, it’s critical for us to have our calendars synced up to the minute. You’ll notice above some times where someone else is watching the boys, spots where I need to pick them up from daycare, all of that. Having that on my phone in real time is absolutely critical.  

2) Multiples

I actually have multiple calendars that are all synced through Google. I have Pastoral, Worship, Youth Ministry, Media, Personal, Workout, and one for the boys. Each calendar gets its own color, and as mentioned above all of them are shared with Sarah. This way when I open up my calendar, I can really quickly see whether or not I am hitting all my targets at work. This week with the convention I am spending a lot of time on Youth Ministry, which means I know when I get back that one of the other ministry areas I’m involved in is going to need some attention. It’s a quick glance way to see what’s going on.  

3) Week Ahead Planning.  

Every Sunday, after church lets out, I take a little bit of time to sit in my office in the stillness and quiet to look at the week that’s coming. It’s important for me to do this every week, just to make sure I have a sense of what’s coming. When things are super busy, I may not be thinking about Tuesday on Sunday because of my Monday day off, but there may be projects that are super important and need some attention. Which leads me to the other tool I use:  

Things 

Admittedly, Things is a little bit pricey. But I purchased it a long time ago while I was in seminary, and it works so well for me I am totally unwilling to try anything else. That said some of the features that Things has are available on cheaper or maybe even free apps, so my let’s just look at philosophy.  

The big thing is to schedule your to-dos. When I was in seminary, I would sit down at the beginning of each term with the syllabus for each and every class, and take a look at the scheduled assignments and readings. I would then make a project (those goofy shaped cubes on the left) for each class, and actually assign to-do’s for every week of the class. In Things, you can schedule when those To-Do’s will show up in the Today view. So throughout the year, my Today view would automatically update to show what needed to be read and written through seminary. As long as I was able to clear out the Today tab every day, I was doing alright.  

These days I don’t often get a syllabus, but I still lean really heavily on scheduled to-dos. I have some repeating tasks that happen every day, every week, and every month. The projects are mostly centered around my ministry areas, with a few personal projects tossed in. While I’m sitting down with my calendar during that week ahead planning, I have Things nearby to add up my to-dos during the week. I also try to have a copy of Things running during every meeting.  

That’s how I roll with time and task management. How do you do it? 

Rushing.

Greetings J-Bloggers!

Time for a semi-annual promise. I woke up this morning feeling guilty that I have neglected this little corner of the Internet that I call home. So I want to work on writing at least twice a week. The person that most accurately guesses which week the wheels fall off the wagon will win a candy bar.

On the face of it, this seems like a horrible time to dive into a more rigid blog schedule. This week, I’m super excited to be headed to the National Youth Workers Convention, a place where my blogging has always been top notch. But while I’m excited to be going, it is also true that I need to accomplish a week’s worth of work by Thursday. There are emails to write, blogs to publish, food drives to wrap up. And there are also the life things. The boys turned three (!) yesterday, so there are doctors appointments associated with that, plus a general desire to spend more time with them. There’s a lot on my plate!

One of the things that Sarah and I talk about quite frequently is the idea of a busy season. My eternal optimistic side always wants to say that these busy times are just a season, that they’ll pass eventually and things will return to “normal.” Sarah understands better than I. This isn’t a season. We’re always this busy. It’s just how life is. Rushing from one thing to the next. And no matter how hard we try, when daylight appears in the schedule it tends to be filled by more “next things.”

But wait! Don’t get depressed yet!

See, I’ve found that in these seasons (there I go again), habits and discipline are the keys to success. There will never be a time when I have abundant hours on the calendar to myself to write. So if I have decided that writing adds value to my life, I have to just buck up and make sure that it’s a part of my life, even and especially when things get busy. If I’ve decided that going to the gym adds value to my life, I need to make sure that there’s a habit in place. If my prayer life is going to keep me sane in the swamp of busy times, then it has to be an intentional choice.

Intentional is such a key word, isn’t it?

I got really excited about the how of doing all of this, of being intentional about habits and disciplines in the busy seasons of life. And then I realized that I was actually writing two blog posts. So how’s this for a teaser: tune in Thursday to see a few of the tips and tools I use to manage all of this, and keep things organized and sane. But in the meantime, my big point is this. Don’t wait for that season when things are easy and there is an abundance of free time. It’s taken me until the boys were three to realize that as a parent, that’s likely never coming. And that’s not a sad thing, that’s actually a wonderful and beautiful thing. And I think there' are ways to thrive, even when we’re rushing about. So tune in Thursday, and we’ll talk some more.

We can do better than this.

Ok, I’m mad now.

Today, the homes of Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama received suspicious packages which turned out to be explosives. On Monday, a similar device was sent to George Soros, a well known fundraiser for the Democrats. I have intentionally stayed off of social media this election cycle, for fear that it might cause me to break each and every plate that my wife and I have accumulated in our cabinet, but this needs to be said.

We can do better than this.

We can have a kind of politics where people disagree, perhaps even sharply with each other, but still carry a level of respect and admiration for each other, right? We can have a politics where violence is condemned, no matter who that violence is perpetrated against, right? We can have a politics where we don’t demonize other people for their points of view on healthcare, right?

We can do better than this.

And before you start thinking that this is somehow an issue for other people, that you weren’t the one who put any bombs in the mail, remember that the founding preamble to our country is “We the people…” What you and I do has an impact on the whole. Maybe we’re not the crazy ones who seek to do harm to other human beings, but the tone and tenor of our debate certainly doesn’t help now does it?

We can do better than this.

So I’m begging us. Please stop the hate. Please stop the vitriol. Your team or ideology winning is NOT more important than the lives of our fellow countrymen, no matter what your team or ideology is all about. Let’s find our way to compassion, and humanity, and grace, and love. We need to. Because this stuff is getting scary.

We can do better than this.

Embracing Minimalism: Entertainment

Hello friends!

As we continue this series on exploring minimalism, I want to make abundantly clear again that I am really not an expert in this in any way. Really, this is all one big science experiment, and I’m inviting you in to see what it’s like in the life of a lab rat!

Also, this seems like a good time to make a reminder that I am in the middle of a 30 day social media fast, so I’m not at all checking in on Facebook or Twitter, though I am posting these blogs in those places. If you have a comment for a blog article, you should make sure to add it below!

Ok, enough disclaimers.

One of my favorite comedians made a point a little while ago that some people will get all kinds of upset about how high their taxes are, but we will never ever complain about how expensive our cable packages seem to be. And wouldn’t you know it, he’s right. We paid $158 a month, or $1896 a year, for the privilege of having cable and internet. What value did I get out of such an investment? I got the “value” of coming home every night, exhausted from work, and mindlessly watching TV, usually just news clips of grown adults yelling at each other about nothing important.

That seemed a poor allocation of resources.

In fact, I get kind of nervous about how much time, energy, and cash go in to our entertainment in this culture. As a capitalist society, you would think that hard work was our number one priority, but in fact I would wager a bet that more time and energy goes into just staving off boredom. And like most things, I think that’s ok in moderation. But in reality, when I found myself over-entertained, I discovered that I was spending less time on doing what would enrich and feed my soul. I was blogging less. I was writing less music. I was reading far fewer books. It just seemed like such a waste of time.

So with my wardrobe already figured out, I decided that the next place we should get a bit minimal is with our entertainment choices. So Sarah and I cut ties with Comcast (who, by the way, are like a horrible breakup. They have called 3 times already and asking why I left. They just can’t take no for an answer!) and moved on to internet only from Verizon. We still need internet, particularly for as often as I work from home. We still have our Apple TV, and some of the local channels that are available there, but I have definitely noticed far less just sitting in front of the TV watching mindlessly “just because.” Usually when I have the TV on, it’s because I’m being super intentional about watching something. Otherwise, I’m reading or writing, and the difference has been incredible.

Maybe this doesn’t fit into most folk’s understanding of minimalism, but it does for me. We cut loose something that was a tremendous drain of resources and energy, and gained a whole lot of value that wasn’t otherwise there. That to me is a win-win.

This is not to say that there isn’t sacrifice. Try as I might, the NHL simply refuses to let us stream in-market games, and so my regular habit of watching the Penguins at home has gone away. But even that is pretty ok with me. My new options are to either watch it with other people out at a bar or restaurant, or wait for a nationally televised game, or listen to it on the radio. While I for sure would rather watch the game every night, these options aren’t so bad, and in fact open me up to other experiences and joys as well.

So is entertainment somewhere that you could cut back and minimize? Could you spend a little less time watching the box, and a little bit more time participating in things that add value to your life? It’s working for me, and in fact it’s paying dividends already and we’re only a week in to our experiment. The value is super clear!

Embracing Minimalism: Wardrobe

Greetings friends!

The internet is a funny place. More often than not, blogs and sites like this are filled with experts, or at least people who think they are experts, dolling out advice on how to fix your problems. Often the impression that is give in that the person writing the post has it all together, all figured out, all worked out, and from an abundance of kindness has decided to let you in on some of the secrets.

Not this post!

Or this series of posts I should say. I’ve been experimenting with something called Minimalism lately, and before I get in to how I found it and what I’ve changed in my life, I think we should make it very clear from the outset that I am in no way an expert at minimalism. I still fall into a lot of the traps of a consumer driven society, and more frequently than I would like. I am going to stumble, fall, and screw this up. But knowing me and my writing style, that will be both instructive and hilarious, so you’re getting some pretty serious bang for your buck!

I first got tuned in to the idea of minimalism by learning of a couple of guys who call themselves (creatively) the minimalists. They were on Rob Bell’s podcast, and everything they were saying was hitting all the right notes for me. They spoke about how driven we are to buy, use, and throw away in our culture, and how bad that is not just for the environment, but also for us as humans. It turns out that they have their own podcast, and a movie called (creatively) Minimalism. It’s on Netflix, if you want to check it out.

And all of that really hit the right notes for me. As Ryan and Josh kept talking about how we were buying buying buying and not getting anywhere, I realized more and more and more they were describing the lifestyle that I wanted to lead, but I just wasn’t leading that lifestyle. This video by Matt D’Avella (who produced the Minimalism documentary) summarizes this well:

But as much as I want to fight the urge, and have since I was a teenager, I did live the lie that having more stuff would make me happier. I lived it so much that our house was just constantly a mess, stuff that we never used piling up in our guest room, our basement, and pretty much every where else that we didn’t live in on a daily basis. It was ugly. A change needed to come.

So I started some place that felt pretty easy for me. The idea came to me when I was traveling in Vietnam last spring. For the entire trip I tried to only take one backpack worth of stuff. So I had 3 or 4 button up shirts, 3 or 4 black undershirts, and two pairs of pants. I also kept a full compliment of socks and underwear, lest you think me some kind of gross person. All of that fit pretty handily into my travel backpack, and with a few trips to the laundry service included, I was able to go a full two weeks with just that. On the plane on the way home, I thought “Why can’t I just live like that all the time?”

So I started to work out of my closet to get rid of just about everything I owned. I had a handful of black or grey t-shirts, a few pair of jeans, and some dress shirts for when I had to be a bit fancier at work. I tried to get down to as small a wardrobe as I possibly could and still be presentable. What was remarkable the whole way through was how many pieces of clothing I would hold in my hand and say to myself “Wow. I don’t really like this.” Why was I holding on to so many pieces of clothing that I don’t really like? I packed everything I was thinking about giving away into a box, and put the box in an out of the way place in the basement. My plan was to not give everything away right away, in case I changed my mind. I would hold on to stuff for three months, and if the minimalist thing stuck I would donate all my old clothes to charity.

(On that note: I read somewhere that minimalism is something that only wealthy people can afford to do, because if we change our mind, we have the means to just go out and buy more stuff. I totally recommend the three month waiting period for just about any of this, because we’d actually be farther behind to buy everything twice than we would be to just be happy with what we have.)

That was in summer. I am realizing that even though I haven’t gone out to purchase any clothing since then, things keep piling up anyway. The number of free t-shirts you get as a youth pastor is almost embarrassing. So this requires a bit of maintenance. But the benefits are wild! For one thing, as someone who never really knows how to dress, this is super easy. Everything goes with everything, so just walk over to the closet and pull out whatever’s closest, and you’ll be in pretty good shape. Though I’m still a slob, my room has been cluttering up less and less, because there are fewer and fewer things that can clutter it up. And there’s this hard to explain benefit, the best way I can put it is that I just feel, lighter. Like the burden was actually lifted from my shoulders a bit.

That said, the wardrobe was a good place to start, but there are other places in my life that could use a minimalist flair. So while this is the first experiment I’ve done and feel pretty good about, there are more to come, including minimizing our entertainment, our diet, and some other specific places. I invite you to join me every week for a deep dive on this, as I try (and likely fail) and then try again to be a minimalist.

Active Shooter Drill

Hello friends!

A moment caught me by surprise today, and as is often the case I wanted to write a bit to get my thoughts together. As my wife was driving the boys to daycare today, she told me that a few of the roads on my route to work were closed, and that I would need to find another way around. So I took the back way, winding my way through our community until I went past the high school. As I went past, I saw almost all of the student body outside, standing around. It took a second to connect the situation in front of me with the posts I had seen on Facebook.

I was driving past an active shooter drill.

I was driving past a school preparing it’s students, a healthy number of whom come to my own youth group, for the eventuality of someone bringing a weapon of mass destruction into their hall ways and opening fire. I caught the eyes of a few students, and there were of course the “let’s laugh this off” kids who were having a great time. But I don’t think I was imagining the look of fear in a couple of student’s faces. And then I imagined my own kids going through the same drill, and things took a turn.

Look, I know that we as a culture are still somehow not ready to deal with the issue of gun violence. We lack the political will to actually make progress. And I can predict with alarming certainty the responses to a blog post like this. The left will say we should ban all weapons. The right will say it’s a constitutional right. All will try to fit me into one of those buckets or the other, just so they know how to deal with me. And we’ll move on. But there was something for me about seeing actual students actually preparing for an event that no one can promise them won’t happen that put things in a new perspective for me.

I know we lack the political will to get stuff done, but I really want to help us start to move in that direction. I know that every side has a problem with the proposals of the other side, but I have to tell you that I have a problem with the students in my community having to train for active shooter drills. That’s not the America I want to live in, and the best part of America is how much we get to shape it. So in this moment, in the (probably all too slim) silence between these mass shootings, when no one is actually talking about it, why don’t we talk about gun and violence issues in our country? Why don’t we brainstorm some better solutions? Why don’t we raise up leaders who are more willing than our current batch to get some stuff done?

Our kids need us to act. Let’s get to it.