Sam Sam the coffee man...

this morning sam took the first two cups of 8 from the pot, as soon as they brewed. "Yeah! I just did that! Whooooo!" He's all like jumpin' up and down and goin' nuts. Don't confront Sam about stuff that doesn't matter...

He's hilarious! Hilarious! Guy's a nut. Sam says, "Whoooo!" You gotta see it.

and why are christians still gravitating to "nice" and "safe" neighborhoods? What is being taught in the meeting-houses of today? Obviously it is soaked in greed (niceness) and fear (safeness).

let's repent.

any christian discipled to OBEY all that he has commanded us is going to manifest a hearty desire to get in there and share the gospel in the tough places... most of the Cincinnati churchgoers think it's beyond good enough to visit a tough place a couple of days a year...

let's repent. Starting with pastors who model and teach to this. If your leadership isn't making a disciple of you--one who obeys all that Jesus commanded us--you need to examine your motives and get real with the Lord... are you into that?

and you pastor-folks... doesn't it make you fearful that the single greatest enemy to the kingdom of god (which is impossible to impede) has been institutional/organized/professional religion-people? Don't you tremble at the thought of facing a stricter judgment, having made man-pleasers and line-toe-ers of the people that Jesus called to deny self and take up the cross?

We are to equip our people to be holy and surrendered to Christ, even unto death. What? To resist sin and to serve to the extreme. Some of us are satisfied with "turn-outs" to "events" that do no more than advertise our meeting days... wow...

Live there, dude.

how do people do it? trying to minister on any daily basis among the church, when the church is a wide-spread conglomeration of individuals who drive up to an hour to come to a weekly meeting?

I mean, daily ministry is to be "neighbor-intensive" isn't it? Jesus told us to love our neighbors. and i'm talking about healing them and doing good deeds among them and to them... soooo... how does the church do that when its meaning is reduced to meeting-culture attendance/membership?

wow. what a systemic problem we face...

during this shifting time, Christians need to focus on ministering in the church, where they live, with the church as their family, daily, in real-time, as a body... this means that the christians you live near are more your church than the meeting community you attend on Sundays...

This implies a shift of understanding of "church" to mean a people: the people nearest your home, first...

All this "drive-in" christianity is producing "drive-away" christianity! This simply isn't the kind of service to which Christ called us. What?

forget how much more effective at the work it is to do it right. What about just the plain old pleasure of our Lord. Let's repent and redefine our terms in Biblical ways, no matter what the cost...

if anyone out there needs help talking this through or praying about it, feel free to connect with us. we are excited about you becoming a disciple who obeys Jesus, where YOU live. About this, we can have coffee...

Visit us and see it firsthand in all of its ordinary glory...

excerpt from this week

researching identity theft and preparing to help someone regain their finances from it...

...researching top Job leads to help local teens get their feet on the ground...

...counseling to young marriages and new parenting...

...teaching in Bible Studies all over the place...

...availability to conversation with neighbors who are... our neighbors! We're supposed to LOVE them, and so often hardly know them...

...working with Welcome Home to help a local family get their feet on the ground, out of extreme poverty. extreme...

meetings... there are so many scheduled meetings in a week...

...regaining my footing with the skatepark company i've started working with, after a 12 day hiatus for a trip to the Philippines...

...jetlag and a cold...

...the joy of my kids, every day. i LOVE picking them up from school every day at 330. It is a high-point and I crave it like a drug. What a joy, this lifestyle of work from home and Ministry in our own neighborhood...

just went down to help with the Teen Job Fair in Northside... What was amazing was how many of the companies that promised to send representatives to help teens apply DIDN't. They just didn't show. didn't call didn't anything...

These young inner city youth saw firsthand the bad example of companies to which they hope to apply for jobs that will require them to show up on time and keep their word... interesting. but sadly, not earth-shakingly surprising...

double standards abound in this world. it's a good thing there is a next one... and so sad that so few will choose to seek Him out to find it...

Back from Philippines

Some of you may know that Judy and I went to the Philippines... I'll update you soon. just want all of you to know...

Whooping Cough

I got whooping cough. Impossible? No. I did. If you never had it, would you believe me when I say that it's like a man coming into my house and giving me a beatdown for three hours at midnight every day?

I'm one of the lucky ones. One guy I know totaled his truck during a coughing session. Other people break their ribs.

I just hurled a couple times.

I only coughed for five days before the antibiotics seemed to start to work. I'm over 14 days into this and i still have "something not quite right". Amazing how fragile we are, when it all comes down to it. The days of people dying of colds are about 100 years behind us...and about 5 years in front of us...