Discipleship (and stuff)

Well, it's official.  I am now the proud dad of 2nd and 4th grade girls, almost 8 and 10 years old.  And I'm learning from a parental perspective what the kids are going to learn this year, as well as what they're already expected to know.  The beauty of it is that I know that they will know more at the end of the year than they know now.  I know, trust and pray for their teachers (mostly for Job-level patience), and am certain that they will be smarter in a few months than they are right now.  Maybe it's just me, but to expect a kid coming off the summer after third grade, it would be unrealistic to think they would know more than someone going into the fifth grade.  Learning is a grand process, perhaps the most fun coming from the fact that you learn in stages.  You don't know the answer to something and you find it.  You then commit it to memory so that you know it next time it comes up.

So that's about as far into the analogy as I'm going to go.  Truth is, I'm hung up on Matthew 28:19-20.  It appears to me that what Jesus is saying is that we are to go out and make disciples of people and THEN teach them to obey the commandments he gave us.  Hang on.  Let me read that again.  Nope . . . I keep getting the same thing.  I've been thinking about discipleship a lot lately, especially in regard to the flock God has charged me with leading.  I've been racking my brain trying to figure out what it looks like to make disciples.  A disciple is defined as "a student or follower of a teacher, leader or philosopher."  Well there you go.  Cool.  Now how do I do that? 

Well, one thing I am deciding is that "making disciples" does not involve me being the morality police. Sometimes we expect people to "clean it up" and then give it to God.  From where I'm sitting, that's completely backwards.  We don't clean our lives up and give them to God, we give our lives to him so he can clean them up.  Where were you when God found you?  A spiritual 3rd grader?  I probably wasn't even that far along, but I know I am now.  I don't exactly have my Masters yet, but I'm working on it.  So to expect anyone who is spiritually in 3rd grade to be at the same point on the path with someone who has had the opportunities I have had in my life is irresponsible and unrealistic.  And it might be borderline Pharisaical.  

So here's what I've decided.  I'm going to meet people where they are.  I'm probably still going to wince when they say something that I'm uncomfortable with, but I'm going to get over it.  And instead of bashing them with my morality police-issue nightstick, I'm going to try to love on them and let them know Jesus loves them as well.  And maybe if we help lead people into a relationship with Jesus, they'll want to be better on their own.  You can be a moral giant and still be lost.  So I think what I need to do is lead people to Jesus, not moral codes, and see what happens.  And in order for me to lead people to Jesus, I need to know where he is, which means I need to be a follower of Jesus and not just a poser who's trying to tell everyone else how to live their lives while my whitewashed tomb is full of dead men's bones.

I'm re-reading this rambling hot mess and it makes absolutely zero sense.  I guess it's been all over the place, which is where my brain has been in this whole "disciple-making" internal conversation.  So thanks for reading.  I feel like I should come up with something clever to say now.  I'm terrible at ending these posts.  

Spidey's Back!

The Wall-Crawler is back with an inspirational tune to make your day a little brighter.

2013 NFL Predictions . . . and stuff

Well, here I am blogging again.  I know that I am a fairly shallow person.  I know a few things.  But more importantly, I know how to beat a dead horse.  So I am going to make some predictions for this NFL season, and you, my friends, may take them to the bank.  I'm not sure what the bank will do with them, but . . . maybe open an account or something while you're there.

1.  The Lions will win the SuperBowl.  Or lose 11 games.  One of those.  But seriously, they're my pick to at least win the NFC North.
And since we're talking division champs, I may as well list mine.
NFC East - Cowboys
NFC North - Orioles
NFC South - Saints
NFC West - 49ers
AFC East - Patriots (blah)
AFC North - Bengals
AFC South - Texans
AFC West - Broncos
2.  The Cowboys will have a top 7 defense.  Seriously, I've seen them ranked so low by fantasy "experts", and I wonder if anyone has ever seen a Monte Kiffin defense.  Monte is Lane's dad.  One of them is a good coach.  I'll let you debate which.
3.  Ryan Tannehill will be a top-32 QB this year.  Mark Sanchez will not.
4.  Jake Locker will throw 25 TD passes this year.  And 47 INTs.
5.  Chris Nolan will do a biopic about the life of Brett Favre.  It'll be called "Winners Never Quit" and Philip Seymour Hoffman will play the title role.
6.  There will be a record sale of "Mrs. Luck" T-shirts this year.
7.  On the way to the parking lot after the Steelers lose their 6th consecutive game, Plaxico Burress will shoot Ben Roethlisberger in the leg.
8.  I will post approximately 6,000 tweets about how we could have had Matt Ryan.
9.  JJ Watt will rip an opposing O-lineman's ribcage clean out of his chest.  He will be fined $25,000.
10. Joey Harrington will be quarterbacking the Jets by week 6.
11. Rob Gronkowski will make a dramatic return to the Patriots by catching 4 TD passes in his first game back.  He will break his femur after the game celebrating at a country/western club during the "Hoedown Throwdown."
12. Russell Wilson will lose the lift insoles in his cleats and will miss the first half of the Niners game in San Fran trying to convince security he's not one of the players' sons.
13. The Dolphins will rip my heart out.  Again.

So there you have it, my 13 predictions.  Why 13?  Because it's my lucky number, which explains a lot.

One More Try

Well, it seems every football season I decide to update my blog, because everyone at home is tired of hearing it and I have to release the pain somehow. So, here we go. I'm going to try to do better now. I'm actually going to try to blog about positive things and see how long I can keep it going. For example, this summer was amazing.


Well, that was fun.


I will say that I couldn't think of a better year for seeing my favorite bands. I just found out that St. Paul and the Broken Bones are coming to Dallas in October. And FIF is coming to Houston in September. And 5 of my top ten are coming to ACL in October, including Jimmy Eat World, whose new album is just ridiculously good. Now if Bananarama would just get back together . . .


I'm sure I'll be blogging more during football season. I'm just not going to write a book every time. I've already gone from thinking we might win ten games to looking who we might take in the top five of the draft next year, all based on the first five minutes of a preseason game. It's gonna be a long year. I'll work on that "blogging about positive things" garbage.