Things I'm learning

a few things I have been learning lately:

discipline leads to desire
This one I am learning by getting it right.


obedience leads to peace
This one I am learning by getting it wrong.

Christmas Bumblings

This year's Kayos Christmas was great. Here are the Highlights:

Christmas highlight #1: I was finishing clean-up after our 6:00 Pm service this past Sunday and the band started rehearsing their Christmas eve songs. Everyone else had left. I sat down in the back row and just listened. Audrey, Kris and Heidi sounded amazing as their voices filled the sanctuary. I felt the Spirit of God move through our building as the three of them sang.

Christmas highlight #2: We hosted this year's Middle School Christmas party at our house. R. was the last student to leave. I have spent the last three years trying to make her laugh, say hello to me, something, anything. R. was having a conversation with one of our female leaders so I plopped my self down on the couch, next to them. R. looks at me and says, "So TK, let me ask you a question." And we proceeded to have a 15 minute conversation. The first of hopefully many. That may not sound like much but that was my Christmas miracle. It was a huuuuuggggge thing for her to engage me in conversation.

Christmas Highlight #3. December 26th, around 7:00 am, Jared, my six year old, sits alone, in the dark, on the living room sofa with his new optimus prime transformer. Gail comes out and sits down with him. He looks at the aftermath of the Christmas celebration around him then he looks at her and says in reference to our Christmas day festivities, " that party rocked!"

Here's hoping your Christmas highlights were many and your Christmas miracles amazing.

Peace and prayers in the new year to you,

Living Victoriously

Sometimes, unfortunately more often than not, we who call ourselves Christ followers, can be a whiny, negative bunch. We forget that we play on the winning team. How great is that? No matter how badly a particular at bat, or series of downs or single race may go, the whole shootin' match has already been won.

We need to live like that. Not with a cocky swagger or worldly bravado but with a confidence in the victory that Christ gained on the cross. What would our daily lives look like? How would our relationships change? Whose life would we impact?

I have recently talked to some folks who have given up on fights because they are too hard; relational, emotional stuff that is just easier left alone. Too hard? Man up and fight the good fight!!

For me living victoriously has recently meant looking forward to each day because it is a chance to participate in the victory, a chance to live like a recipient of ridiculous grace and undeserved mercy. I don't think it's about being overly optimistic or having my head stuck in the sand. For me, it has been more about if there is fight let's fight it hard, if there is a celebration let's celebrate with everything we have. If there is loss, let's grieve the loss, cherish the memory, and what was, by moving on with character.

What would it look like for you live victoriously?

Church through a visitor's eyes

Guest blogger David Zimmerman, wrote a series on Church from a visitor's perspective, over at Church Marketing sucks.com. His third installment made me think of few church visits Gail and I have made.

Gail and I went to a big church right in the middle of town when we first moved to Arkansas. We liked the service and the teaching and all that good stuff. When we finally found the adult Sunday school we were obviously the only ones who didn’t know everyone else in the class. Not even the person running class said hello or introduced him self. We felt like we interrupted a personal conversation. It was quite frankly horrible. We didn’t go back.

The week after that we went to a much smaller church. The wall behind the altar was floor to ceiling windows. The altar boys stood with their backs to the windows. About half way through the service four birds started what appeared to be a strafing run right at the altar windows. Three of them pulled up but one must have not seen the window. It flew straight into window right at the height of one of the altar boys head's. The kid jumped about three feet. I don't think anyone else in the place saw it but I did and I laughed my silly rear-end off. Unfortunately that was the highlight of our experience there. We didn't go back.

Then there was the quaint little episcopal church on Cape Cod. We were by far the youngest people there, 30 something. During their announcements they asked any visitors to stand up. I wasn't going to stand but Gail elbowed me and we both stood. The ushers appeared from the back and handed us what appeared to be a loaf of aluminum foil. It turned out to be a loaf of somewhat stale cranberry bread. It was a nice gesture but not worth the discomfort of having to stand up in front of strangers. We didn't go back.

We went to this one church that met in a high school auditorium at the recommendation of a friend. I wanted to boogie as soon as the service was over. But someone stopped us and said hello, made some small talk, and introduced us to someone else. We went back a couple of more times. Someone invited us to dinner with some other young families from the church. We went back a few more times. And a few more after that and a few more after that. Eight years later we are still there.

Just in case you tend to be a little cynical, much like myself, we attended Crossroads for two years before I went on staff. This whole thing could sound a little self pimping that is not my intent. Crossroads is not without its faults but welcoming folks into our community is not one of them.

Looking back on it, and this isn't rocket surgery (yeah that's what I meant to write) it wasn't the preaching or music or children's program that led us to our church home. It was people who took an interest in us. And it wasn't obligatory faux interest either. No, the folks at Crossroads were actually interested in who we were and what God was doing in our lives.

What are your experiences, good, bad or ugly, with visiting churches?

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Discontent

There is within me, a discontent. I cannot label it or quantify it. I cannot point to a person and say you are the source of this dissonance within me. Nor can I view an event through the 20/20 eyes of hindsight and say there "it" is, the source of my frustration.

At the same time this discontent feels somehow holy. It feels right. It has driven me deep into thought. The thoughts have begun to drive me into areas of prayer not before encountered.

I want this discontent to stop. I want this discontent to last.

Good stuff out there

While my writing is sporadic as it has ever been, I have kept up on my blog reading and there is some good stuff out there. Here are some recent finds:

New (or new to me) Blogs: Reforming Students, The Gospel Driven Church

Church Marketing Sucks has a new series that is proving thought provoking to me: Church from a visitor's perspective

Erin at Biscotti Brain offers a review of Red Letters: Living a faith the Bleeds I think this one will be on my next amazon order.

Woot.com is an online store and community that focuses on selling cool stuff cheap., their words, which are pretty accurate. They have partnered up with yahoo to form Sellout.woot.com

I'm home

I'm home after a great summer of traveling.


We had amazing short-term missions experience with some high school folks in Mahanoy City, Pa.











We had a great outdoor adventure with High school and middle school folks in the Adirondacks led by the outstanding guides from Pathway Outfitters.














I even got to spend some time away with my family at the beach. We rested, relaxed, camped, swam, mini-golfed, played baseball and I actually played golf. Thanks to the generosity of friends and family Gail and I got night away on our own.




In the midst of that hustle and bustle we also had time to read, and be quiet and still. So I came home from vacation having made one fairly profound realization and with a question to ponder. More on those later.

All and all, it was an excellent summer.

a little too much Personality

I took the Meyers-Briggs thing as part of my pre-marital counseling some 13 years ago. I'm a little less schizophrenic than I used to be.

As far as the multiple intelligence thing goes I'm not sure what to make of it. Kinesthetic thing makes perfect sense. but the musical thing.....idk...I love music, mostly listening to it. I can play guitar and read music but my ability to do either of those are limited.

I think if one were to spend some time with this it could prove beneficial from a self-discovery standpoint, especially if you have never taken Meyers-Briggs or anything like that. I think I might have my leadership team thake this test and share their results to help us understand each other a little better



What about you do have any personality?

ht to len for the link to this site

Great Photo Essay from Time magazine

Time magazine has a great photo essay exploring what the world eats in an average week and how much it costs. What do you think these photos and numbers would say from your neighborhood?

Be with me

Strong outside in
I labor & struggle and work
I put on a game face
I stumble, I fall, I crash
Be with me
You are with me
Strong inside out
My face becomes a reflection
albeit a poor one of you
You push, you guide, you lead
You shape, you form, you sculpt
Be with me
You are with me
Strong inside and out
To stand, to reach, to fight
My face is the way you intended it to be
Be with me
You are with me

Oh My randomness!!!

I heard the words today that I have been waiting for eight years to hear.

From my eight year old son Jake: "Dad can we watch sportscenter?" No joke, I actually got a little misty eyed. My boy is growing up.

I hesitate to write this but here goes. Once you put something in writing it's real. I have toyed around with making a new commitment. I would like to be in better shape at 40 than I was at 20. Yikes I wrote it. There it is. To help down this path I found this "jogcast." It's basically a trainer in your ear via an mp3 player with some surprisingly decent tunes as a soundtrack. "Run now," "walk now," "cool down now." A very manageable program designed to have you comfortably running 5k, 3x a week after 8 weeks.

I really enjoy background music when I am writing, studying, catching up on administrivia. For me, the key to background music is no or minimal vocals. There is a ton of music in this genre. I have been mostly into Trip-Hop and ambient stuff. The problem being my wife finds it creepy. I recently bumbled across the band This will destroy you.
I bought their album young mountain after listening to a couple of tunes online. I am really enjoying it and the wife has given it the non-creepy seal of approval.

Memorial Day Parade

Our little community of faith has been in it's new location for 6 months now. We are finally getting settled. By getting settled, I mean taking advantage of the new locale. We are on Main St about a block down from the town hall.
Every year the memorial day parade runs down Main St and goes right in front of the building we now share. There is a beautiful front lawn edge with Azaelas. People will drop chairs off on the side of the road at 9:00 am to save a prime spot for the parade. Many families with little kids will show up an hour and a half early to get a good spot where the kids can see everything and catch the candy thrown by the brownies or little leage or local firefighters marching by.



We thought we would offer free face painting and games for the kids and free lemonade and water for whoever might be thirsty. I did I mention it was free. I was really pleased with everything. The parents, from the community, who brought their children seemed relieved to have something do with the kiddos. And we went through 10 gallons of lemonade and 5 gallons of water. My hope and prayer is this is just the first of many times we can serve the community from our new diggs.

Alternative Social Ethic

Alternative Social Ethic--This is a phrase used by the authors of Colossians: remixed to describe one lens through which to view the bible. That is to say, a calling toward an alternative social ethic is one of the recurring themes present from the creation account, to Jesus' birth to birth of the first christian communities. This represents a call away from securing peace and prosperity, or as Walsh and Keesmat write, "fruitfulness and Shalom," through military and economic conquest. On a personal level, this means, not giving into the notion that the source of peace and prosperity is the empire; Rome, Washington, Wall Street, the mall.

So how do we live within the empire and yet not be shaped by it? Better yet how do we go about implementing an alternative social ethic? What does the concept of an alternative social ethic do to our relationships, our calendars and our checkbooks?



colossians remixed

point of re-entry

I have obviously been absent from the blogosphere for a while. Trying to develop some sort of Godly rhythm to my life and blogging just wasn't fitting into that rhythm. Here is my attempt at a healthy re-entry.

I have spent quite a bit of time reading and studying the book of Colossians lately. I picked up a copy of Colossians Remixed by Brian Walsh ans Sylvia C Keesmaat to supplement my reading. This quote really jumped out at me:

What god do you want? And on whose terms will you accept this god? You see the danger of wanting god, without being willing to allow this god to speak in a voice that is radically other to our own voice, is that the god we end up with is like any other consumer product we take off the shelf. p34

I have been noodling that one around for a while. For me, I think I have definitely been guilty of accepting only the parts of God that suit me at a particular time. I'm guilty of "shopping God" to me my needs. If any of you are still checking back here, what do you think?

Live differently

I want to live differently
differently than I did yesterday
say one thing, do another.
I want to live differently
differently from the world around me
that has everything but wants more.
I want to live differently
differently, like I believe in things
like grace and truth.
I want to live differently
differently like there is something bigger
than me and my needs.
I want to live differently.

Least favorite words

We had a big family dinner this past Sunday; my mom, the in-laws, and Gail's sister Karen and her husband, Wardo. were all at our house. It was great to sit around and eat a little pasta and sauce, share some chianti out of jug and talk. Somehow the conversation turned to our favorite words. I don't have a favorite word. I do, however, have two least favorite words. For as long as I can remember, I have always despised the word ointment. Phonetically, it sounds horrible. Further and more importantly, there is no circumstance in which the word ointment can be used in a positive sense. I just can't stand it. I can't believe I actually shared that with my family. They are already conspiring ointment related Christmas and birthday gifts.

On Sunday evening, I couldn't for the life of me, remember what the second word on the list was. It just came to me. This word just replaced ointment as my least favorite: chipotle.
Thanks to the likes of Chili's and Applebees, the word has become almost as overused as "extreme." Not to mention how grotesque, the images that appear on screen with the chipotle voice over appear. I have never heard anyone outside a TV commercial use the word.

If someone comes up with a chipotle ointment please don't tell me.

That Face

I had a great weekend. I got to assume the role of stealth leader on our Middle School Winter Trip. My friend, Newt, (who not three years ago was senior in our high school program) took over the hands-on leading responsibilities for our middle school stuff back in August. This was his first trip and not wanting to throw him completely to the wolves, I went along for the ride. It was great to see Newt and the other leaders loving kids, playing foozball and soccer in the snow. It was great to hear about the conversations they had during cabin times with the kids.

The speaker for the weekend was a woman named Margo. Her theme for the weekend was the face that satisfies. She did a great job relaying the story of Jesus to 300 or so middle schoolers in a way that they could understand without making them feel like she was talking down to them.

I even left early to get home for a brunch Crossroads was hosting for the members of Grace Episcopal Church, the congregation, with whom, we now share a building. Grace is an established church and has been around for years. The point of the brunch was to say thank you for opening your doors to us and let's get to know each other a little bit. I sat next to a woman who has been singing in the choir at Grace for 65 years.

So I got to thinking about the faces I saw this weekend and how they each, in their own way, reflect the Face that satisfies. I saw the face a scared middle schooler who had gotten separated from his group at lunchtime and wasn't really sure what to do or where to go. I saw the face of another middle schooler who was pissed off at the world and didn't care who knew it. I saw the faces of 4 volunteer leaders who were completely sleep deprived. I saw the face of an 80 year old woman who wasn't really sure to make of all these young people playing their rock 'n' roll music in her church.

God spoke: "Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the cattle, And, yes, Earth itself, and every animal that moves on the face of Earth." God created human beings; he created them godlike, Reflecting God's nature. He created them male and female.

Genesis 1:26-27, THE MESSAGE

The tomb of Jesus

So the Discovery channel is going to air a special on the tomb of Jesus. This, of course, has created quite a stir, on both sides of the argument.

I don't really know what to make of the whole thing because no one is doing any kind of unbiased reporting. Everyone presenting a case has an agenda. So I think I will watch the special, wait for the brew-ha-ha to settle down and then do some research on my own.

Wouldn't it be nice to turn on the news and get the news and not someone's editorial opinion or commentary?

Updated 3/1/07
Found on Emergesque. The Washington Post writes"

"Leading archaeologists in Israel and the United States yesterday denounced the purported discovery of the tomb of Jesus as a publicity stunt."

Full Post article here.
So it sounds like there are some folks who are trying to do some honest research and writing on this thing.

Depression and Restoration

My friend Bill taught at church last night. He was creative. He was insightful. He was real. He spoke from his heart about some hard stuff. I resonated with so much of what he said. As I looked around the room, it appeared many others did as well. His whole message was less than 15 minutes but man, did he pack alot into that brief span. It is well worth the time. You can listen to it or download it here.


technorati tags: depression

SNOW DAY!!!!!

It snowed here in the Northeast last night. At right Kayos and the George Kids chucking snowballs at the camera guy. That snow man is approximately 6'4" tall, okay, we got a little carried away.














I remember eating snow as a kid but not quite like this.

It's back to school for them tomorrow.