OK, so I borrowed the title of this post from the movie Schindler's List. But I want to tell you about a different list I've created.
After attending a recent conference (thanks, Bruce!) I was inspired and challenged to be more intentional about my life. So, I created a daily To-Do list. To clarify, I have a To-Do list every day, but it fluctuates. This new To-Do list is a list of things I am intending to do every single day of my life, regardless of whatever else needs to happen. I've been doing many of these things for a while, but now I'm systematizing them and hopefully making them more regular. Here it is:
1. Pray for my wife and family.
This is fairly self explanatory, I hope, but I want to be continually praying for my wife and kids. In a sense, this is selfish, too, because I'm praying about my own role in their spiritual lives, too.
2. Pray for my church and my ministry.
As I have finished and reflected on my time of training at DTS, I realize more and more the desperate need I have to keep myself connected to the Father. My ministry and the church I shape must be continually given over to God if I am to have any "success" at all.
3. Pray for leaders.
This is connected to #2, because I'm speaking of church leaders. I'm passionate about seeing God's people doing the things that God desires them to do. Obviously, I'm thinking of specific people here, and praying about the specific ways they lead. Also included here is emerging leaders. Praying about people who need to be invested in so that they can become leaders. And, then hopefully my prayers for them will lead me to act in the lives of those people.
4. Intercessory prayer.
This includes prayers for friends, family, others that we hear of who need prayer. Pretty simple, but pretty important.
5. Manage my decisions.
I stole this from John Maxwell. It is great to make decisions, but if we don't take action to manage the outworking of those decisions, then what is the point? I want to use my time well, stewarding what God has given me always.
6. Serve Willingly.
Rather than being a slave to managing my decisions, I want to balance that with serving others well. Sometimes things come up that interfere with the plan. But if I model my life after Jesus, then I must be willing to set aside my own agenda in order to follow God's.
7. Study and Read.
Certainly I'm thinking of the Bible here. But, not just the Bible; I want to be learning each day. This is pretty easy for me, because I love to learn. But, it is also one of my strengths, so I want to be fostering it.
8. Build Up My Wife and Kids.
This is where the prayer above turns to action. I feel that too many days go by where we just coast through life. The result is not stagnation, where we stay static. The result is that we recede in our discipline, our godliness, etc. So, I want to be intentional in this area.
9. Practice Integrity in Thought/Word/Deed.
Again, this seems pretty self explanatory, but I hope it will serve as a reminder to me daily.
So, there's my list. I've got it stored on the welcome screen of my iPhone so I can't get away from it. And now you can hold me accountable to it.
What is on your list?
What things do you need to be reminded about every day?
What priorities might I have overlooked?
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Friday, May 20, 2011
The End of My Seminary Career
So the reason it has been a while between posts here is because we have been busy with finishing up coursework at DTS, graduating, and looking for a job. And while the first two tasks have been successful, the third is still a work in progress. So, we have a lot to look forward to as God reveals His future for us. We'd appreciate your prayers.
As I reflect back on our time here, there are many lessons I have learned at DTS. Here are three:
1. God is faithful. He has come through for us time and time again, and we have seen Him come through for countless others. If you ever want to test your faith, enroll in seminary. You will not be disappointed.
2. God works through His people. The money and encouragement God gave us did not fall out of the sky (except that one time). He used people to provide for us each time. Our time at DTS will be marked by a string of faces and friends who prayed, listened to God, and responded to the stirring of His Spirit. I would encourage you to be listening, too. You'll never know what blessings God desires to give to you or through you if you don't seek Him and His will.
3. And finally, simple apposition requires that both nouns be in the same case, while the genitive of apposition requires only the second noun to be in the genitive case. Hey, I never said that everything I learned was inspiring and important.
As I reflect back on our time here, there are many lessons I have learned at DTS. Here are three:
1. God is faithful. He has come through for us time and time again, and we have seen Him come through for countless others. If you ever want to test your faith, enroll in seminary. You will not be disappointed.
2. God works through His people. The money and encouragement God gave us did not fall out of the sky (except that one time). He used people to provide for us each time. Our time at DTS will be marked by a string of faces and friends who prayed, listened to God, and responded to the stirring of His Spirit. I would encourage you to be listening, too. You'll never know what blessings God desires to give to you or through you if you don't seek Him and His will.
3. And finally, simple apposition requires that both nouns be in the same case, while the genitive of apposition requires only the second noun to be in the genitive case. Hey, I never said that everything I learned was inspiring and important.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Friday, April 1, 2011
Misspellings
You know those words that no matter how many times you type them, you always type them wrong? I hate those words. I think everyone has different words that give them trouble, but for me, these are probably my top three:
church (chruch)
resurrection (ressurection)
ministry (minstry)
Maybe I should look for a new line of work...
church (chruch)
resurrection (ressurection)
ministry (minstry)
Maybe I should look for a new line of work...
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Have I Ever Told You...
Have I ever told you this story? As you may know, we set up this blog partly as a way for friends and family to keep up with us while we were attending Dallas Seminary, and partly so that we could share some of the amazing things God is doing for us and through us. I've shared a few of those things, such as how God has come in at just the right time to sustain us (here and here), or how all four years of our tuition was paid by God and how we are graduating without any student loan debt (here). But there's a story I didn't tell, and I perhaps should have. We've generally tried to avoid singling people out on our blog, but this story is too cool and too bizarre not to share.
We met a Catholic priest (who happens to live in Europe) through a family member. He came here to Dallas to visit, and when he found out we were in seminary, he was very excited. Even though he is Catholic, he's always had a soft spot for Protestants. It seems that his father was a Baptist. Our priest friend grew up in the war, and one fateful day his father was getting on a bus. He stopped to let a woman on to the bus ahead of him, and in that moment, German war planes strafed the street where he was standing and he was shot and killed. Thus, he was raised Catholic, because of his mother, but never lost his admiration for Protestants.
Well, having struggled through seminary himself, he wanted to do something nice to support us. As he was about to retire, one of his parishioners gave him a generous gift. She gave him a retirement home and a bit of money. He told us about this gift and that he wanted to share a bit with us. We were flattered, and were thinking he might be really generous and give us a few hundred dollars. Apparently his parishioner was incredible generous, because he ended up giving us several thousand dollars. Praise God.
As I reflect on this story, I think it is amazing all of the little details that worked together. One moment in getting on a bus that changed lives forever, one woman who wanted to reward a priest for years of faithful service, one priest who saw a family with needs to whom he could relate. And generosity like that which has allowed our family to minister well to others, setting off a whole new chain of events that God is using to draw people to Himself.
Where are you in the story? Is there an action God is calling you? Is there a response God is seeking from you? Or do you have a story of your own that deserves sharing? What better forum than this?
We met a Catholic priest (who happens to live in Europe) through a family member. He came here to Dallas to visit, and when he found out we were in seminary, he was very excited. Even though he is Catholic, he's always had a soft spot for Protestants. It seems that his father was a Baptist. Our priest friend grew up in the war, and one fateful day his father was getting on a bus. He stopped to let a woman on to the bus ahead of him, and in that moment, German war planes strafed the street where he was standing and he was shot and killed. Thus, he was raised Catholic, because of his mother, but never lost his admiration for Protestants.
Well, having struggled through seminary himself, he wanted to do something nice to support us. As he was about to retire, one of his parishioners gave him a generous gift. She gave him a retirement home and a bit of money. He told us about this gift and that he wanted to share a bit with us. We were flattered, and were thinking he might be really generous and give us a few hundred dollars. Apparently his parishioner was incredible generous, because he ended up giving us several thousand dollars. Praise God.
As I reflect on this story, I think it is amazing all of the little details that worked together. One moment in getting on a bus that changed lives forever, one woman who wanted to reward a priest for years of faithful service, one priest who saw a family with needs to whom he could relate. And generosity like that which has allowed our family to minister well to others, setting off a whole new chain of events that God is using to draw people to Himself.
Where are you in the story? Is there an action God is calling you? Is there a response God is seeking from you? Or do you have a story of your own that deserves sharing? What better forum than this?
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
The God of Hope
I'm trying to be better about blogging in the moment, that is blogging at the time I think about it, rather than waiting and eventually forgetting to do it. So here's something I was thinking about today.
I've always been a little puzzled by Genesis 12. The chapter starts out this way:
"The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you."
That's all we get of the conversation. But surely there was something else. Surely, Abraham had some sense of who this God was who had the nerve to command him. After all, what person in their right mind would follow the command of God who they had no prior contact with? As I pondered what must have happened, it struck me: this God offered hope. A hope that no other god could.
Abram was 75 at this time. He knew that he was childless, and perhaps resigned himself to the fact that he would die that way. All his prayers to other gods, all his actions that he had tried over the years had been fruitless to change his life. They were met with only silence and tears.
And then he encountered the one true God. And this God promised him offspring. Which meant he had hope.
Abram met God, and something about this God was different from the other gods he must have tried. Something about his encounter with this God gave him hope that there would be offspring, that their would be a future for his family.
The best part is that God still offers hope. No matter what we've tried and failed to achieve, God holds out hope that the future is better. My prayer for you who are reading this is that you embrace that hope. It wasn't too late for Abram, and it is not too late for you.
I've always been a little puzzled by Genesis 12. The chapter starts out this way:
"The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you."
That's all we get of the conversation. But surely there was something else. Surely, Abraham had some sense of who this God was who had the nerve to command him. After all, what person in their right mind would follow the command of God who they had no prior contact with? As I pondered what must have happened, it struck me: this God offered hope. A hope that no other god could.
Abram was 75 at this time. He knew that he was childless, and perhaps resigned himself to the fact that he would die that way. All his prayers to other gods, all his actions that he had tried over the years had been fruitless to change his life. They were met with only silence and tears.
And then he encountered the one true God. And this God promised him offspring. Which meant he had hope.
Abram met God, and something about this God was different from the other gods he must have tried. Something about his encounter with this God gave him hope that there would be offspring, that their would be a future for his family.
The best part is that God still offers hope. No matter what we've tried and failed to achieve, God holds out hope that the future is better. My prayer for you who are reading this is that you embrace that hope. It wasn't too late for Abram, and it is not too late for you.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Theatre Review-Macbeth at Kitchen Dog Theater
Kitchen Dog Theater celebrated their 20th season of theatre with what they describe as a "stripped-down" version of Shakespeare's Macbeth (playing at McKinney Avenue Contemporary through March 5). And it is indeed stripped-down: eight actors swapped out all of the 30 roles, there is a mostly bare stage, minimalist costuming, and the script has been trimmed to about half its normal length, with no intermission. All of these things set the stage for what could have been an outstanding theatre experience, but was in fact only a pretty good theatre experience.
The design team created a barren, urban apocalypse environment. There was multi-level scaffolding built around the small theatre, even behind and above the audience, and a simple platform at the rear of the stage. The metallic black and grey gave Donna Marquet's set an abandoned warehouse feel, but the director didn't fully utilize the levels until the end of the show. Prior to that, they seemed to serve as little more than very long exit stairs. The set design being open allowed for the entire ensemble to be visible to the audience even when they weren't in the scene. Again, this seemed an underused element of the production. There was very little reaction from the ensemble at key emotional points in the play. They seemed content to just hang out, rather than contribute in a tangible way. The experience of seeing the actors as passive observers gave a Brechtian, disconnection to a play that is overloaded with dramatic emotional decisions and consequences. The result was that the audience was unable to fully connect emotionally to the action of the play.
One design highlight was the "soundscape" created by John M. Flores. Flores uses both music and the sounds created by the actors as they stomped, ran and clanged against the metal scaffolding throughout the show. The result is an environment that rang as hollow as the weird sisters' empty promises, and as hollow as Macbeth's embittered heart. Combined with that was a solid lighting design by Aaron Johansen. Johansen had essentially a "blank canvas" on which to work, and filled that canvas well, maintaining a creepy, hollow mood throughout.
The costuming was perhaps one disappointing element of the design. Clad in almost all black, the characters used only slight modifications to delineate the different characters they play. The most effective modification was the use of dirty towels to cover the faces of the actors playing the Weird Sisters. Their facelessness added to the mystique of these central, otherworldly characters. The rest of the costuming, though, felt uninspired. The costumes created a vaguely socialist/militaristic society, which didn't quite seem at home in the urban warehouse.
And speaking of things that weren't quite at home, we must turn our attention to the acting. First, let me say this: the actors were all strong. As an ensemble, they worked well together, and each of them handled the text quite capably. That being said, the decision to limit the cast to eight generated some difficult casting problems. Rhonda Boutté, who was my favorite of the Weird Sisters and who had a stellar moment as Lady Macduff, never really got off the ground as Banquo.
Max Hartmann was sufficiently creepy in his various ensemble roles, but his Malcolm left me feeling nervous for the future of Scotland. Again, the actors were obviously all talented, but dividing so many roles among the eight left for some disappointing miscasting. Among the ensemble players, Adrian Churchill seemed the most well suited for his various parts, and he shone in each role. Jenny Ledel and Drew Wall were never in large enough roles to settle into just one character, but they both played the utility role well. Cameron Cobb did a decent job as Macduff, though at times he came across as too youthful for the role.
Ultimately, though, any production of Macbeth hangs on the actor playing Macbeth, and to a certain extent, on Lady Macbeth as well. Christopher Carlos was a timid, even affable Macbeth at the beginning of the show, duly surprised that the Weird Sisters would prophecy such grand things for him. His downward spiral to insanity was slow and a bit too controlled—I longed for him to emerge wild-eyed at the end of the play, and he never did. Christina Vela captured Lady Macbeth's passion from the beginning, and was solid throughout.
In the final analysis, this review was admittedly rather nit-picky. And since this reviewer had the luxury of being nit-picky, that is a sign of a pretty good production. Kitchen Dog Theater has been creating solid performances for 20 years now, and Macbeth continued the tradition.
Pegasus News Content partner - John Garcia's The Column
The design team created a barren, urban apocalypse environment. There was multi-level scaffolding built around the small theatre, even behind and above the audience, and a simple platform at the rear of the stage. The metallic black and grey gave Donna Marquet's set an abandoned warehouse feel, but the director didn't fully utilize the levels until the end of the show. Prior to that, they seemed to serve as little more than very long exit stairs. The set design being open allowed for the entire ensemble to be visible to the audience even when they weren't in the scene. Again, this seemed an underused element of the production. There was very little reaction from the ensemble at key emotional points in the play. They seemed content to just hang out, rather than contribute in a tangible way. The experience of seeing the actors as passive observers gave a Brechtian, disconnection to a play that is overloaded with dramatic emotional decisions and consequences. The result was that the audience was unable to fully connect emotionally to the action of the play.
One design highlight was the "soundscape" created by John M. Flores. Flores uses both music and the sounds created by the actors as they stomped, ran and clanged against the metal scaffolding throughout the show. The result is an environment that rang as hollow as the weird sisters' empty promises, and as hollow as Macbeth's embittered heart. Combined with that was a solid lighting design by Aaron Johansen. Johansen had essentially a "blank canvas" on which to work, and filled that canvas well, maintaining a creepy, hollow mood throughout.
The costuming was perhaps one disappointing element of the design. Clad in almost all black, the characters used only slight modifications to delineate the different characters they play. The most effective modification was the use of dirty towels to cover the faces of the actors playing the Weird Sisters. Their facelessness added to the mystique of these central, otherworldly characters. The rest of the costuming, though, felt uninspired. The costumes created a vaguely socialist/militaristic society, which didn't quite seem at home in the urban warehouse.
And speaking of things that weren't quite at home, we must turn our attention to the acting. First, let me say this: the actors were all strong. As an ensemble, they worked well together, and each of them handled the text quite capably. That being said, the decision to limit the cast to eight generated some difficult casting problems. Rhonda Boutté, who was my favorite of the Weird Sisters and who had a stellar moment as Lady Macduff, never really got off the ground as Banquo.
Max Hartmann was sufficiently creepy in his various ensemble roles, but his Malcolm left me feeling nervous for the future of Scotland. Again, the actors were obviously all talented, but dividing so many roles among the eight left for some disappointing miscasting. Among the ensemble players, Adrian Churchill seemed the most well suited for his various parts, and he shone in each role. Jenny Ledel and Drew Wall were never in large enough roles to settle into just one character, but they both played the utility role well. Cameron Cobb did a decent job as Macduff, though at times he came across as too youthful for the role.
Ultimately, though, any production of Macbeth hangs on the actor playing Macbeth, and to a certain extent, on Lady Macbeth as well. Christopher Carlos was a timid, even affable Macbeth at the beginning of the show, duly surprised that the Weird Sisters would prophecy such grand things for him. His downward spiral to insanity was slow and a bit too controlled—I longed for him to emerge wild-eyed at the end of the play, and he never did. Christina Vela captured Lady Macbeth's passion from the beginning, and was solid throughout.
In the final analysis, this review was admittedly rather nit-picky. And since this reviewer had the luxury of being nit-picky, that is a sign of a pretty good production. Kitchen Dog Theater has been creating solid performances for 20 years now, and Macbeth continued the tradition.
Pegasus News Content partner - John Garcia's The Column
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