There are some who call me … Tim

Current Fat Status
Goal Weight: 192
Actual Weight: 193

Lame excuses

• So, I am off by a pound.
• Mom’s in town and I had to impress her with my fine culinary skills. (We made some amazing meatballs Saturday night and I made chili Sunday.)
• The Garcia’s came in to surprise mom and it’s Carly’s birthday, so we just had to get a Coldstone Cake. (Cookies n’ Cream with ganache frosting!) mmmm…
• You didn’t seriously expect me to not have a piece of coldstone cake???

So, I made my second chili of the season and it was a good one! (I bought the wrong kind of tomatoes (whole ones) but I blended ‘em up and they worked just fine.) Also, instead of buying beef for stew we bought a chuck roast and I cut it up.

Mom is in town (there will be another post on that later) but she loved it. Though, she mixed it with cottage cheese ’cause it was a bit spicey for her.

Carlos and Ruth brought Carly and Chris in to surprise mom for Carly’s birthday, too. Despite Carlos’ complaining at the lack of beans in my chili, I won him over with its beefy goodness!

Last night was week 3 in our series on 2 Timothy. This week was chapter 2. We opened with 2 of the training clips from Karate Kid. (still awesome!) They were the ones were Daniel was training and first saw Mr. Miyagi do the crane thing and then when he was learning balance on the boat. great stuff!

I opened with the Big Idea for the night. Our fight is for the world around us, not against the world around us. Basically meaning that the people the need God’s love and Jesus aren’t the enemy, they are the ones we are fighting for!

Paul comes across as this “in your face” and “take the hill” and “say it like is its” tough guy leader. But, when you read the advice, example and instruction he gives to Timmy on how to live and lead you get a whole different story. Before I listed those things I asked the students what the character attributes ans descriptions were of the people who had a huge spiritual impact on their lives. They said “Sincere, forgiving, humble, understanding, devoted, loyal, courteous, caring, tough, loving, relentless, god-fearing, listener, accepting, compassionate.” (I was so impressed by their list!)

This is list actually fits the things Paul was calling Timmy to…

• strong in grace
• endure hardship
• kind
• gently instruct
• teach
• pursue righteousness
• pursue faith
• pursue love
• pursue peace

We also talked about how paul warns timmy to not get caught in foolish and stupid arguments. I asked the students if they knew any know-it-alls who argued with everything they said. They all raised their hands. I then asked if they actually cared what that person had to say… no hands! That was paul’s warning to timmy! be the first list (loving) and don’t be the arguing know-it-all! 

The cool thing is, the students knew this all to be true from personal experience!

We close it all being re-thinking what it means to “fight for the world” using these ideas. Some Christians get get in trying to reach people by first arguing for the truth, hoping to force repentance, then sharing love. When Paul seems to call timmy to love people first, let God bring around repentance that leads to knowledge of the truth!

2 Timothy 2:24-25

And the Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, 26and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.

Click here to listen to the message.

The rest of the night
The games were OK. We having been playing a lot of the in room, run around like crazy games lately and they have lost some pizazz. The movie trivia games have been a hit and the band was rocking! Jason was drumming with extra massiveness!

One thing we talked abuot was how maybe we should have pushed everything back a week and taken this week to just realx and hang out. I think with the pressures of life and school and now that we have small groups running we can also push a bit too much and too hard and need to just chill and have some fun every now and then. We’ve adjusted our schedule for the rest of the year to make sure we don’t have any long stretches without a night to just be togther and have a blast!

My good friend Seth has a great post and link about the whole issue of Christian subculture. From religious apparel to only using Christian businesses and organizations, it’s a really interesting and important topic for all of us to wrestle with.

Check it out at http://helduphigh.blogspot.com/2007/10/this-sub-culture-must-die.html

For a funny look at some of the worst of the trinkets for sale, head on over to Marko’s blog and look at “Jesus Junk of the Month.”

Current Fat Status
Goal Weight: 194
Actual Weight: 193.5

Excuses and things

• Well, I am still under my goal weight, but I only lost half a pound from last week.
• Friday night, my buds took me out and I honored them by fully partaking in BW’s and snacks! The only problem was, it was a surprise and I had eaten a good bit during the day and only left about 500 calories for dinner. but, it was so worth it!
• I also fell a bit on Wednesday as I had lunch out (general tso’s chicken) and we had Hungry Howie’s (pepperoni with ranch crust.. the best!) for dinner prior to Wednesday night.
• But, I was good on Saturday and very good on Sunday and am eating right today as well.

So, I got a surprise on Friday night. It was getting late and Heather kept putting off getting dinner and I was getting hungry. Finally, around 7, I was getting Vinnie ready for bed and I convinced her to get pick up Qdoba. (I offered to go, but she wanted to.) So, I hear her leave and few minutes later she comes back in, takes Vinnie and says she has a better dinner plan for me in the living room. I was confused… I went in the living room and there were 7 of my buddies from the middle school ministry come to steal me for a night and go out!

It wasn’t my birthday or anything, but most of them knew that life has been a bit stressful at church for me lately and Craig (who is an awesome friend!) organized the whole deal. They figured I needed a night out, and I did. We ate BW’s, watched Transformers and had a great time. But, the most touching and moving part for me was knowing that these guys all have different stresses in their lives as well, but they put them aside to care for me.

It’s humbling and powerful and I don’t even know how to respond. I tend to want to be the strong stubborn one who can make it through anything, but the truth is… we all need help and love and encouragement.

 So… Craig, Jason, Noah, Aaron, Chris, Adam and Wes… if you are reading this… thanks! I love you guys! You’re the best!

Last night we continues in “Timmy” series on the book of 2 Timothy. We also watched our second clip from “The Karate Kid.” (And had the totally sweet soundtrack playing beforehand!)

Click here to listen to the message.

 The Big Idea was “We’ve got to work hard and practice sharing the good news about Jesus.”The clip this week was when Daniel gets all whiny about doing chores like painting the fence or sanding the floor and the Mr. Mygai shows him what he learned was great practice for karate. So sweet!I only had about 15 minutes, so after our Karate Kid clip we jumped right in with a quick recap from last week on who Paul and Timothy were and why we have this in the Bible. I started out with the passage and talked about the fact that it seems like from scripture we know that Timothy was shy or timid and that Paul wanted to challenge him to step out in faith. This is were the idea of practice comes in. That sometimes when we may not feel like we are up to it, we need to practice things like sharing love.And that sometimes sharing God’s love doesn’t always turn out the way we want and we may suffer for it. But, just because someone throws stones at you doesn’t mean we should throw the Bible at them. Which leads us to talk about what it really means to share the good news instead of sharing the bad news…What is the good news?

• Love
•  Hope
• Life
• Grace

What is not Good News?

• Defensiveness
• “All the things you’re doing wrong”
•  ”All the great ways I am right”
• Shame

The rest of the night

We had a much more relaxed evening but had a blast playing a game Marcia recomended.

For worship, we had an awesome opportunity as a worship team from a partner church in Nairobi came and we joined with the high school ministry to rock it out with the Kenyans in our main auditorium! It was so awesome!

…that my son was able to dial 9-1-1 while chewing on and playing with the phone? We didn’t know he did it, until a nice police officer came to the door and said they had gotten a call that hung up and they called back and got a busy signal. He guessed it was just a case of “Vinsanity.”

No more playing with the phone…

Tom made this poster… click on it or a larger version.

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So, I made my first pot on Sunday. (It was a serene moment when I pulled my cast iron dutch oven of the cabinet…) I need to play some dramatic music next time… Like the soundtrack to the Lord of the Rings or The Rock…

I thought it was really good. (So did Heather!) I didn’t use enough chili powder though, so the other flavors (beef, tomatoes, etc.) really stood out. I added some chili powder to my bowl and I thought that made it even better.

I don’t always, but I did use some chipotles in adobo sauce to kick up the heat a bit.

Sunday was a good day…