New Year's Resolutions Right Away...

On January 1, 2008 our family will be making good on our resolutions to exercise more in 2008! Join us at the Leesburg Rotary Resoluion Race which is either a 4k or a 10k depending on your stamina.

If I can convince Mo, we'll be sitting in a booth at the Leesburg Restaurant by noon that day, so that we can break those other bothersome resolutions about healthier eating.

Clocking Out

Destiny Church is taking off next Sunday, January 30th so that our valued volunteers can enjoy some well-deserved down time and so that the lead team can visit some other churches and see what cool stuff they are doing...

Are You Destinized? is also clocking out until the new year but will be back strong in about a week with a whole slew of hip, random thoughts on God, good food and life experiences. Have a great week.

Early Christmas Morning

The sun has not even risen yet this Christmas morning, yet I find myself rising before my kids. I'm a little restless and I'm not sure if it is coming off of Destiny's Christmas Eve services last night or it is because of the cool gifts (Ipod Shuffle, Digital Camera and Video Camera all bought on Black Friday at 6am!) that I get to see my family tear into in about a half an hour....we told them, "No earlier than 7am!"

My hope for you this morning as you awaken, is that you would know the love of God that was demonstrated in the birth in a stable 2000 years ago.

Enjoy your family and friends today...and worry about the bills and the diet tomorrow.

Christmas Weekend at Destiny

We have got some incredible stuff lined up this weekend:

Sunday, December 23rd at 10am
Our final "Miracles" service, I get to unpack the poolside miracle found in John 5. We'll ask and answer the question "What is Jesus asking you to do?"

Monday, December 24th at 5 and 6:30
This is going to be great, there are some incredible surprises lined up and if Destiny's version of The Little Drummer Boy doesn't get your blood flowing, then you better stop by your doctor's office.

See you tomorrow and Monday...

Bloglines Beta

More than ever before, I've succumbed to my Blog addiction. Hello, my name is Todd, and I'm a Blogaholic. (You are now to respond: "Hi Todd.")

At any given time, I am following 15-20 different blogs. They cover everything from the Red Sox to Church Leadership to Man vs. Wild. I feed off of this stuff and feel like I may never read a book again...(because most of my reading has been on a computer screen lately).

None of this addiction would be possible without the newest beta version of Bloglines. It is great and allows me to click through my selection quickly, throwing out what I don't want and holding onto what I do.

What tools do you use to keep up in the Blogosphere?

Jack Johnson's Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

This guy is so cool, he can make an old Gene Autry song with bad animation hip.

Consider a More Meaningful Gift This Year

Most of the people on our lists do not have significant material needs. The majority of the world, however, does. Why not consider a World Vision gift this year!

Give a goat to a family in Haiti or an alpaca for a village in Peru and do this in the name of your cousin Larry. You will help to impact our world and will honor your cousin at the same time.

Make plans now for next Monday evening...

Miracles Part III

It was so cool to hear about the miracles that God has worked in the marriage of my friends the Mirch's. Today, at Destiny, they shared with us the story of how God intervened in their failing marriage and rebuilt, restructured, and renewed their life together. They said that God literally brought their dead marriage to life.

Greg followed up this incredible story of marital resurrection with the account of Jesus bringing Lazarus back from the dead (John 11). Before today, I thought of this Lazarus-type miracle as one that I would never get to see, but when you apply it to the dead and dying areas of our lives, then I begin to expect to see God's resurrecting power within the details of everyday life.

Is there an area of your life that is needing a life-infusing miracle?
How are your relationships?
How are you coping with illness?
How is your career?
How is your family?

Let me encourage you to take 30 minutes out of your week and listen to Greg's message from today, but I must warn you, it may just set you up for a miracle.

The Breakfast Special

Every Wednesday I eat breakfast with a couple of guys. A freshman in college and a senior in high school are willing to get up early to grab a meal with an old man (me). I enjoy getting together with these guys each week, but even if they didn't show up my day would be made because the wait staff at the Leesburg Restaurant know me and always welcome me as if I was entering their home.

They don't even give us the menu anymore and when it comes time to order they tell us what we want and they are always right.

Bryton:  Scrambled, bacon, white toast and apple juice.

John:  Sunnyside up, sausage, white toast and water.

and Me:  Scrambled, bacon, wheat toast and water.

The Cheers theme song talks about a place where everybody knows your name, but the Leesburg Restaurant has upped the ante by being a place where everybody knows your order. I like having a place where I order the "usual" and it means something. 

"Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling."

I Peter 4:9

My technologically-advanced family...

Here are some of the highlights from our family's laptops:

-Mo and I are both on Facebook and embarassingly enough, have used it to communicate together.  If you are one to mock "social utilities" then you will enjoy  the Facebook Song.

-Mo is also a blogger, you can find MOments listed in the right hand column of this very blog.

-The kids are toying with the idea of doing a web show a la I Carly. If you are not under the age of 14, you might not get that reference. Ask your kids about it.  If you don't have any kids of your own, grab a neighbor kid (just figuratively). Rehearsals for this were a riot yesterday.

-Webkinz, Neopets, and Aim also take up a lot of our laptop time...

-Katey loves teaching her grandparents how to use instant messenger... And to think my parents struggled to get me to write two grandparent thankyou notes a year (birthday and 

Christmas).

-I'm beginning the discipline of journaling again. I'm using youversion and am loving it.

-Would love an Iphone, a Chumby, or a Kindle for Christmas but will settle for fleece running gloves instead.

Water to Wine

Today at Destiny we continued our look into 5 miracles that Jesus performed. Today's miracle was "the first of his miraculous signs...He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him". Greg explained the intricacies of an ancient wedding and the importance of this symbolic (albeit real) act. If you missed this message, you should check it out at the Destiny Podcast site.

One characteristic of Jesus that is often missed in the accounts from the Gospels is that He did some fairly normal things in between speaking to thousands, healing many and performing amazing miracles.  Jesus was at a wedding when he performed this first miracle. That means that he got a normal invitation to the wedding, had friends and family that wanted him there, enjoyed celebrations and may have even picked out some ugly candlesticks as a wedding present.

The point is that God stooped down to earth in the body of a man and lived with us. Everything was normal except that Jesus was without sin and that the goal of His life was sacrifice (two huge points, by the way!). As you prepare for Christmas, take some time to read Luke 2 and consider the incredible step God took in sending his son to be born among us.

The Great Cover Up

This morning we awoke to a peaceful covering of snow. It was beautiful and quiet outside. The blanket of snow reminded me that beauty is only so deep. In this case it was about 2 and a half inches.

You see the big oak in my back yard had just finished dumping it's leaves last week and I had not finished the huge job of raking leaves. The snow this morning simply covered up my unfinished yard. It looked pretty on the surface but it was simply covering up an incomplete job underneath.

What do you cover up with? Happiness? Material things? Job satisfaction?

And perhaps more importantly, what job underneath remains undone? Is God working on your heart? Your compassion? Your fears?

Don't simply cover up the undone jobs, because like the blanket of snow this morning, it will eventually melt and expose whatever is underneath.

"Search me, O God, and know my heart;

test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me, 

and lead me in the way everlasting."

Psalm 139:23-24

Strategery

Today we head down to Lake Anna to do some strategic planning for '08...

Here is what I'm looking forward to:

-time with the Destiny staff team, these folks are fun.

-inviting God to join us there.

-dreaming big about what God has in store for Destiny's future.

-developing systems to get us there.

-focus. 

and

-s'mores around a big 'ol honkin' bon fire.

Here is what we will NOT be doing:

14th Birthdays

Birthdays are not rocket science. 

When a birthday goes well, we all know it. When it does not, it is painfully obvious, like any party that involves Chuck E. Cheese.

Here is the simple formula we followed for Katey's birthday party this year. It worked well for us, your results may vary.

(6-8th Grade Girls + 2-Fairly Responsible Parents) x (a Honda Pilot that is supposed to fit 8 but probably only fits 7 + a quick trip to Washington DC) x a plush bowling alley called Lucky Strike clearly equals a winner of a soiree.  

By the way, this party success does not come cheap but is worth every penny.

I Believe in Miracles...

Destiny launched a new series today and it is going to be great! We are taking some time to look at Jesus' miraculous working in the lives of others and then applying those principles to our own lives. Jesus calmed storms, changed water to wine, raised the dead and helped the lame to walk. The basic principles for our lives today are that He can:

-Calm our storms,

-Change our lives for the better,

-Bring life to the dying parts of our world, and

-Fix our spiritually paralyzed lives.

That's the Reader's Digest version, be sure to stop by Smart's Mill on Sunday or check out the podcasts on the Destiny website.