Last night we were at an academic awards ceremony at my son's high school.  Naturally, Toni and I were very grateful for what he accomplished.  But it was great to be in a room with kids who had achieved so much already in life. 

I was really struck by the words of the M.C. that night – a math teacher from the high school.  He simply said this:  "Success is a habit.  You might think that you are here because you were lucky or it was some fluke that you got here, but that's not true.  You worked hard at it.  You had great habits.  Success is a habit."
I had never quite heard it put that way before, but I loved the thought.  I think the Apostle Paul might agree.

A person who has a mediocre gift set but works hard at developing that skill set every day will accomplish much more than a person with a fantastic skill set who plays video games all day and never engages them.  I've always been intrigued by the notion that if you spend an hour at one subject every day, you can become an "expert" in it within a few years.  Fascinates me.

So my question to me (and you) is: Are my habits making best use of whatever gift set God has given me?  How am lining up my habits so that God can best use them to bring value to Him and to others?

So my oldest son Jordan and I are off a on a road trip tomorrow morning.  We'll wrap it up next week at the Orange Tour stop in Los Angeles.

So excited to have the best part of a week with just the two of us wandering around the west coast.  He planned the route. Let me just say we'll be on the road a lot.

Might check in here from time to time, but I'm totally excited about being able to build into his life and him into mine.  Talk to you soon. 

How's your balance lately?  Mine has been a bit off.  I've put in extra hours the last few weeks and have felt more pressured than normal.  It's a blip, but it's got me noticing some things.

When I work too much:

• I laugh less
• I cram devotions into smaller spaces
• I am less charitable in my mood
• I'm actually less productive

As I was thinking through this in the last few weeks, I was reflecting on a talk I heard recently from Doris Kearns Goodwin.  She's a presidential biographer and was reflecting on a lesson she learned early on in life.  The lives lived best involve a passionate pursuit in three spheres: work, love and play. 

She contrasts Abraham Lincoln's life with Lyndon Johnson's.  Lincoln worked ambitiously, loved deeply and played hard.  Even in the midst of the civil war, he went to the theater about 100 nights each year.  Johnson, on the other hand, focused mostly on work.  And in his senior years realized he had lost deep relational connections with his family and had lost passion for anything recreational.  He died bitter and heartbroken.   You should hear the talk.

As much as we admire biblical heroes, I wonder if I mistakenly think they are heroes because they were all "work" all the time. That's not true.  David loved music and the arts.  Jesus apparently loved to celebrate and even go to parties (few people ever talk about this).  Both deeply pursued meaningful friendships and relationships. Maybe God's definition of a full life is bigger than mine.

Life needs to be a balanced, passionate pursuit.  I know my tendency is to want to work. 

What do you think of the three spheres Doris mentions?  Do you agree?  I find when that's true in my life, I'm at my best.  What do you think?

I am grateful and challenged by the posts last week and this week about what you want to hear preached and what your friends might want to hear.  Keep them coming!

Now I have a disturbing question. 

Could it be that a lot of the subjects we want to hear about (apologetics, denominations, money making, pagan roots of holidays, even the Trinity) are due to the fact that Christians don't often act like Christians?

When there is nothing special about us – the way we love, the way we give, the way we serve, then questions about why we are different/not different abound.  If we loved and lived the way Jesus loved and lived, would our friends "get it" more and start asking a different set of questions or maybe even just start following?

This question haunts me because I think I might be part of the problem, not part of the solution.

What do you think?  Follow what I'm trying to say?

Now that it’s fall, that means my bike is going to go away soon and I will have to resort to other forms of exercise, which means the likelihood of me exercising plummets.  Worse, my appetite always spikes when the temperature drops.

Enter the long lost art of self-control.  I’m a hit and miss guy when it comes to self control.  I have learned the art well in a number of areas of my life, but diet and exercise (and a few other persistent pests) still lag. 

It always surprises me when I read through the classic passage in Galatians on the fruits of the Holy Spirit that self-control is listed in the same sentence as love, joy, patience and kindness.  If we’re really relying on God, self-control will factor huge into our walk with Christ.

This article argues that self control is easier when we focus on the overall picture and goal, not the specifics of the moment.  For example, instead of thinking how not to eat more cake, think instead about overall health and the goal of eating better.  Participants who thought big-picture and long-term exercised more self control.  It reminds me of God’s promise to always help us when faced with a self control issue if we would turn to Him (big picture v. small picture).

It also reminded me of one of the parenting principles we teach in Orange: imagine the end.  Parents often get stuck in parenting because we get lost in the details of the moment – life is so busy we let our tempers fray and petty things ruin the day, or we’re lose patience because of our daughter’s attitude.  When that happens, we lose focus on the overall goal of raising kids who are fully alive in Christ. Self-control in those moments comes more easily If we constantly keep the end in mind.   When we keep the end in mind, we’ll focus our parenting on what matters most.

How’s your battle with self-control?  Any of these learnings helpful?  What do you find helpful?  Did the article (or scripture) resonate for you?

So as a companion to last week’s post about what you would choose to be the next message series, here’s a fresh angle.

In your conversations with your friends who don’t attend church, what subjects keep coming up?  What might be a subject that help move them from disinterested to curious to even maybe trying a weekend service?

Anything’s game.  Have some conversations and report back.  Or offer some thoughts from recent conversations.  As we plan the 09 preaching schedule, I’m all ears.

What are your friends thinking about?

So Toni left early Friday morning with some girlfriends to go shopping in Pennsylvania.  (Apparently there’s no sales tax there.)  Happy for her, but that left three men alone in the Nieuwhof house.

It was a pretty predictable weekend.  We barbecued everything.  Except the Kraft Dinner.  And I went on a two day vegetable fast.  Nothing spiritual.  I just didn’t want to eat vegetables. 

We also watched too much tv and a lot of sports and un-chick flicks like Ironman. It was a great time. It kind of all reached its zenith on Sunday with steaks on the bbq and nobody ate anything but steak.  It got out of control when the kids dared me to eat a tablespoon of cinnamon.  Naturally, I did.  Unbelievably painful.  If you don’t believe me, try it.  But don’t sue me when you can no longer breathe and every bit of moisture gets sucked out of your body.

I can’t wait for her to get home tonight.  As much as we want to exercise our freedom to do the things we don’t get to do enough of, I found myself making a salad by late Sunday afternoon.  I wouldn’t mind seeing a movie she’d like to see.  Can’t wait to eat more nutritious food.  The good that we mildly rebel against is actually a good we need and actually love. 

Kind of the way it is with God, isn’t it?  Sometimes we like to exercise our freedom in ways we think are fun, but in reality, His way is the best way.  Tonight, I’m so welcoming that ‘way’ again. 

Confession time.  All of us, in here for this one please.

How do you waste time?  I am convinced that most of us waste time during the day.  My worst days are writing days like today when I get derailed.  I hit writer’s block and I hit a wall.  Then I go waste time.  Not intentionally, I just do it.  30 seconds.  Five minutes.  Ten minutes.  It adds up.  And I wonder why I never work a 40 hour work week – why it always stretches to 50.  And I wonder how much more I could get done if I had better self-discipline.

Here’s how I waste time: I check twitter too much.  I check my blog stats and other stats (I suspect this is a major addiction among bloggers).  I check my bank balance on line way more than I need to.  I do random math on my calculator, even though I don’t like math.  I stare into the abyss. I go get tea.  I multi-task to the point where I am efficient at nothing. 

Oh yeah, and sometimes I write blog posts like this. 

Then I get back to it. 

Sometimes I think I have ADD.  And sometimes I think I need to be a much better steward of my time.  I have the attention span of a mutated gnat.  When I go into a factory and watch workers slogging it out 8 hours a day non-stop or watch the typical pace at a Tim Hortons, I realize I could do much better.  I want to make better use of my time.

How do you waste time?  How do you feel about it?

I love drama. We are big fans of Prison Break in our house, which probably has more twists and turns than the vast majority of other tv shows.

Drama attracts us.  Who will win the next race…the next election…the next promotion?  We like to hear inside stories of what really happened.  Following the drama in the lives of celebrities is huge business.

Conflict is a necessary ingredient in drama.  Without conflict, there is no story line.  There has to be a problem that needs resolving.  The problem creates tension and the episode is over only when the tension is resolved.  Then naturally, we look for more tension to sustain our interest in the story line.

I love all this – except when it happens in my own life.  In my own life, I tend to resist high drama, problems and tension.  I don’t like conflict.  I don’t appreciate suspense (when I don’t know how something is going to turn out – well or poorly).  It bothers me.  Sometimes I pray God would take the drama out of my life.

But then I realize God works through drama.  If you actually read the stories of scripture for what they are – they are filled with drama.  What happens to Adam and Eve now that they’ve sinned?  Is James really going to get beheaded?  Will Daniel survive the lion’s den?  Will Paul make it through his latest stint in jail?  How come Peter is being arrested again?  Will Jesus be betrayed tonight? 

So here’s the tension.  If God is going to use you and me, it’s probably going to involve drama.  That’s the way life and faith work.  We’re being stretched, tried, tested.  There’s a battle between good and evil and you and I live in its jaws.

How am I going to embrace drama?  How am I going to live out James 1?  Can I see tension, drama, suspense as part of the natural journey of faith?  Am I okay with good and evil battling it out on the tarmac of my heart? 

What do you think?  Do you welcome tension, drama and suspense as part of life and part of life in Christ?

(P.S. Thanks for the preaching ideas.  Keep em coming.  I’d love to hear more!)

Back in April, we did a series of posts asking you for feedback on what you’d like to hear preached at Connexus over 2008.  Man, you guys stretched our thinking incredibly well.

It’s that time again.  2009 is almost here (okay, in preacher world it’s almost here) and I will be plotting out our 09 series with our team over the next month.  Let’s start this way…what would YOU like to hear us talk about on the weekends here over the first half of 09?

As I reviewed the posts from the last time we did this I was pretty excited to see how many of the ideas your raised made it into our series.  I Doubt It was almost entirely shaped by your input.  7/490 was in part generated by blog content. And I know I weaved many of your themes into other messages.

So…what are you anxious to hear us talk about in the New Year? (We’ll do a post on what your friends want to hear next week, so get those conversations started this week).

I’ve got a bunch of ideas swirling, but I’m going to let you go first.

Over to you.