I wear plaid. I'm a blogger.

The past two weeks I have spent at CIY Move, a high school conference designed to engage teens in a deeper walk with Christ. There have been some truly inspiring messages, worship moments, and devotional times and many teens have made commitments to Christ throughout both of these weeks. I love to be a part of things and learn what is "popular" among teen worship services and also to glean ideas from CIY. As I sit back and try to procure ideas, I find myself critiquing what they do more than I ought to. I have found that CIY does a great job at two things in particular: 1) Putting on a show. Technically speaking, these guys pull out all the stops. It is a rock concert gone Jesus! Smart light fixtures, moving color washes, triplewide environmental projection, on stage props, and IMAG up-tight camera shots. 2) Not putting on a show. All of the worship leaders do a great job of deflecting the cheers towards God after songs, speakers remain humble, and they make sure to put...

Psalm 8:2 says, " Through the praise of children and infants      you have established a stronghold against your enemies,      to silence the foe and the avenger." and Jesus quotes this verse during the triumphant entry in Matthew 21 . I have always liked the imagery of this verse--of kids giving God praise and of babies understanding an element of worship that adults don't get.  But just this past couple days, I have listened to Isaiah start to talk. Well, talk might not be the best word to describe it. Babble isn't quite it either. He speaks in jibberish. Baby jargon that no one can make heads or tails of. He is just talking to talk. And I love it! I love to hear his voice babbling away because it reminds me that he is made in my likeness and he is learning to express himself through speech.  And as I was listening to Isaiah "speak", I remembered Psalm 8. "From the lips of children and infants..." wait a minu...

A couple weekends ago I committed to run a half marathon (13.1 miles) which marks the farthest run I have ever completed by a long stretch. It was a strangely telling experience of much of my personality and the process of completing the race taught me a lesson or two along the way.  The telling part of my personality is that I do much better when I am in community with people than when I am by myself. In this case, I would not have finished the race in nearly the time I did (1:56:06) had I not been running with Brian who was coaching me the whole way and cheering me along with his presence. I think anyone who runs (or doesn't run) will gladly admit to you that running in community is much more enjoyable than running by yourself. I will testify to that. There were several times I wanted to stop. Specifically at mile 8 and 10, I could feel my legs really starting to weary themselves with the monotony of the repetitious movement of the run. As my legs told my brain that they...