Ever thought how nice it would be to have a one line question to ask a close friend on a calm rainy day?  Not like we have any calm rainy days around here in saint louis -  Maybe for the fact to stimulate your mind or sounds smart or the big one – to grow in your relationship with that other person by discussing deeper topics other than how’s work?  I long for this every day and wanted to share something with you.

In the last month I’ve had numerous conversations with good friends, this time instigated by yours truly, about something that has been on my mind, a lot lately.  Let’s say it simply intrigues me to the ultimate and back.  Like a package of oreos, i can’t let a package of oreos just sit there and go untouched, and most the time, I have to eat the entire package!  So this intrigues me like a new package of oreos…

Notable: This would be most effective if you only read and processed one section at a time (they’re short and few).  I know it would be very tempting and easy to read the entire post or none of it but I challenge you to take a moment or a few moments throughout the next week and read bits of this post.  See what may happens.

I hope this post will be as intriguing to you as 20 hopeful oreos!  I would even go as far as recommend you to read the first section and walk away from this post so you can think about it and come back for the next section.

Let Us Begin! – I would really appreciate an email or text or comment if you wish about this cause I’m crazy curious about it.

Section 1

do not read section 2 until you’ve fully thought about this.  It may come as a shock to you for how short and initially comical it may seem to you:

If you were present and some random guy / girl walked up to your mother and punched her out, what would you do?

[ truly think about what you would do]

Section 2

Now that you’ve thought about it a bit and hopefully have an answer, do you think that’s right?  Meaning do you think it’s humane or based upon social standard or is it the culturally common thing to do?

Section 3

What do you think Jesus would do?  Was your answer anywhere close to what Jesus would do?  If not then why, if so then why did you not answer with a more cultural answer and why do you think the cultural answer, or in other words, the immediate instinctive answer is so barbaric?

There are SO many things and ideas that can spawn off of where we are now, when do you think anger is an OK emotion, do you think it’s right to allow someone else to control your emotions, if God created anger for a purpose what is that purpose and how do we control ourselves to using anger for only what it is designed for?  I could write pages of things we could talk spawning from where we are on a conversation topic level!

I encourage you to bring this up to a close friend.  When discussing this, it IS very important to pause and talk about each section naturally like it’s not a process.  Reason I say close friend is because I think this is something that could open up a very deep conversation to allow quite a bit of growth between two people.  It allows a lot of inward thinking and reflection which I think is a great way to grow.  One of my deep desires is to grow in my relationships with other people through Christ and his word.  Need I say more?  I love how simple this is too!

Quarterlife = A ministry at Windsor Crossing for 18 – 20’somethings

Last August of ‘08 I remember very vividly going to the Tuesday night lab (learning and belonging) group which would later become Quarterlife.  We would occasionally meet at a small Chinese restaurant and fit at no more than 2 tables get our food then head over to the church to do our study on the previous weekend service.  There was an average of 6 people who attended and it was a trying and growing experience for us all to stick with it with the hope and trust that God had a plan for our tiny group.

Not more than a year went by and this small group of awesome people turned in to a huge awesome family.  Now, an average of roughly 100 people attend the Tuesday night ‘quarterlife midweek’.  The leaders and core members of this group all have fascinating stories and it is incredibly clear that God has directed each of our lives to meet at this midweek and be a part of this family.  A year ago, I was 98% for sure moving back to Chicago because I had abandoned the hope of establishing a community here, God told me to be patient and WOW does he have a plan in store.

I am very excited about what is to come in the next months and coming year.  Knowing that this family has a passion and heart to make God’s Kingdom expand in ways that we could never imagine and knowing that this could never have become what it is without God simply blows my mind.

Yay God!  I pray that we become a community, a family, not just to build relationships but to do your work wherever you call us, that we get our hands dirty and share the truth of Jesus and restore this city.  I pray you give us the strength, courage, peace and trust to follow your plan and your direction.

Amen, So be it!  For it is Your will, not mine.

Pray for these young people of Quarterlife and that we may do whatever God asks of us.

You all rock!

I’m a homeowner!  It’s finally official, I signed the closing papers today and I am now an owner of my first house.

It’s been quite a bumpy ride, a lot of testing of handing over control and trust of my life to God, and He is good!  It’s a crazy feeling, thinking of that house and saying, “I bought that!?”.  This is a big step in my life and I pray that this house will have the light of God bursting out of it, that it will be a place of direction in people’s lives and a place for growth and foundation.

I meet with my contractor on Monday to plan out the schedule for the construction on the house.  I’m having the following done:

• Carpet in the basement
• Refinish the stairs
• Carpet the bedrooms
• Update the flooring upstairs
• New windows
• New Furnace / AC / Thermostat
• New door

I’m also having a house warming party where some friends and I will get together and write prayers and encouragement on the floors and walls before they are finished and a party to paint the house.  I plan on moving in to the house 2 – 3 weeks from now, for the time being I am blessed enough to have a sister and family to let me crash at their house temporarily.

Thanks for your prayers and words of encouragement.  God has definitely been at work throughout all of this.

“Of all the cars I’ve driven this year, I’m pretty sure – this one, is the best” – Jeremy Clarkson, Top Gear

My favorite auto show, Top Gear, and my car was on it! I was so stoked when I saw it.

I couldn’t agree more.

Want one of these?

ISN’T IT WEIRD? and crazy and exciting and scary when your church begins a series that hits you so hard and so real you can’t ignore it?!

I go to Windsor Crossing which is a cool, hip, down to earth church which is trying to create a new image of ‘church’ and ‘christians’, but that’s a topic for another day.

I went to the Robbie Seay Band’s concert on Sunday, they’re headlining the ‘Hope, Coffee & Melody’ fall tour with Chris Taylor and Allie Rogers (both amazing artists 2 very good listens). The concert was amazing, and crazier yet, the concert was free, and at my Windsor! Apparently the staff at Windsor is all buddy buddy with the Robbie Seay family, so that’s cool, I’m sure I’ll be seeing more of their music performed in the coming future.
The thing that hit me, to go back to my beginning statement of this post, is they were kicking off the beginning of a new type of life. You may say, ‘what you mean a new type of life?’ and I’ll say, ‘Well the beginning of Advent Conspiracy… duh.” This concert was not the first time I’ve heard of Advent Conspiracy (and it won’t be the last). Envion Studios, my business, was going to be the firm to redesign their website and I heard about it last year and a few of my buddies from Windsor have chatted about it around me but it never hit me how powerful this really is.

What is Advent Conspiracy?

Well, you could do a couple things to feed this curiosity i’ve forced you to thirst for…

a. Click here to watch an amazing video (and as a design enthusiest i think it’s an absolutely amazing video).

b. Read (me? i prefer the video because it rocks, and also you can get to more info once on the site with the video.

The concept behind Advent Conspiracy Is:

Worship Fully
Spend Less
Give More
Love All

c. Chat it up with me. And of course if you don’t feel like reading (understandable) and you can’t watch for the video for some unknown reason (not-understandable ) If you don’t have my chat info you best get it.

d. All of the above.

This hit me hard.

just the other day i said to myself ‘it’s time to renew my wardrobe’, then I continued, ‘why stop there, why not renew my living room, get some black 20″ rims on your car, get 2 24″ monitors…’, i went on for quite a while, i even wrote a list! Then i got hit by this message once again, and not just once recently but almost constanly, like God is saying trying to show me how so many people in this world, including myself’ are so selfish. There was this Advent Conspiracy, then one of my friend blogged about selfishness not too long ago and I looked at the list I wrote earlier and was overwhealmed with how blessed my life has been.

Then pops the question, what am I doing with the blessings being given to me?

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. (

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my flickr

Until Next Time