great expectations

For those of you who haven't heard, Brooke is pregnant with our first child!!!  This is exciting, crazy, scary, and lots of other things.  She's almost 11 weeks along but the ultrasound picture is from when the kid was 9 weeks old.  I've been assured that he/she will get cuter.  I was going to list all the things that have already developed by this point in time but the list is too long.  It's amazing how fast this little guy/girl grows.  His or her heart has been beating for over a month and while it's still too early to tell whether the baby is a him or her that is already determined as the testes or ovaries are already developing.  For those of you who don't want to try to figure out the math the anticipated due date is December 1.  Whoah!

NYC here we come!

Brooke and I fly out in the morning for a trip to the Big Apple?  Why do they call it that?  Anyway, this will be Brooke's third visit to New York City and my first and we are both pretty pumped.  I've wanted to visit NYC for awhile and it has just never worked out so I'm excited to do some sight seeing and just soak in the vibe of the city.  The reason we are going is to attend a church planting conference in preparation for the work we'll be doing when we return to Auckland.

just because i needed to smile

This is simply classic. I dare you not to laugh.

consolers of the lonely

This sophomore album from The Raconteurs is an incredibly satisfying and worthwhile purchase.  You should order yourself a copy today.  Here's a video from the album's first single Salute your Solution.  "I found a ridicule that isn't cool for me at all."  Classic.

a 5.2 at 4:37am

Having never experienced an actual earthquake before it was a little unsettling (no pun intended) to wake up at 4:37 this morning because the entire house we are staying in was shaking.  Due to my lack of experience and the sleepiness affecting my thinking I could not for the life of me figure what was going on.  I thought, "Did a tree fall on the house or was it hit by a car?" but when the house continued rattling and shaking away for 20 to 30 seconds I realized that neither of those were viable options (had I not been half asleep I would have realized they weren't viable options to begin with since the house is positioned in such a way that no car could hit it with any significant force and there are no large trees near it either).  It wasn't until Brooke said, "Hey, I think that was an earthquake." that I finally was able to acknowledge that as a possibility.  Sure enough she was right.  There was an earthquake registering about 5.2 on the Richter Scale 130 miles east of St. Louis.  You can read more about it here.  Now I have a new experience to add to the list.  Just F.Y.I., apparently an earthquake of this magnitude releases an amount of energy roughly equivalent to the atomic bomb detonated over Nagasaki at the end of WWII.

true christianity - the third option

The following is an excellent summary by John Stott about the calling of Christians to avoid religiosity as well as irreligion:

"Christians are to be different from both Pharisees and pagans, the religious and the irreligious, the church and the world. That Christians are not to conform to the world is a familiar concept of the New Testament. It is not so well known that Jesus also saw (and foresaw) the worldliness of the church itself and called his followers not to conform to the nominal church either, but rather to be a truly Christian community distinct in its life and practice from the religious establishment..."

Basically what Stott is saying is that while the dangers of debauchery are obvious, Jesus was also concerned that his followers not be merely religious (some might say overly religious).  A faith that is nothing more than external practices, no matter how good those practices may be, is not the personal and living faith of true Christianity.  For more on this check out this article by Tim Keller.

more "fun" from the past

I may live to regret this but I thought, at least for the amusement of my friends, that I'd put up a picture of this little gem that my mom found tucked away somewhere. I'm happy to say that by grace my scholastic endeavors have improved with time. Of course actually showing up to class is a step in the right direction. Showing up to class sober helps too. As I've said before, I used to be a little different than I am now (but I still suck at Math!).