IMPACT

Yesterday was the first meeting of a team of senior high students and leaders that will travel to the Dominican Republic at the end of June this year to share the love of Christ with people who live there.

I am incredibly blessed to be part of that team, and so is my wife.

We are excited about the unique mix of people who make up this team. The trip leaders are Kory and Alison Lantz, who are missionaries themselves, Ben and Joslynn Nehls and us. I am really excited to spend time with these guys, learn from them, lead the team with them and serve alongside them.

As excited as I am about the leadership of the team, I am just as excited about the students on the team. We have 12 girls and 8 guys who have committed to 6 months of training and 10 days in the Dominican Republic. Most of them are current high school seniors, which means they are going to get very busy in the next few months with proms, graduation plans, college plans, summer jobs, etc. Yet, they've decided that being on this IMPACT Team is important enough that it's worth the sacrifice.

I don't know all the details of what we are going to do while we are in the DR, but I know one of our main objectives is to encourage the people we meet there. We want to leave the DR a better place than what we found it. Not that we can do anything in our own power or with our own abilities, but with God's provision we will be able to shine a light in a dark place.

Personally, this commitment comes at a time when time is already running thin in my life. A full-time job, working with a small group, coaching two youth basketball teams and endless projects at home make it hard to squeeze in anything else. But, Katie and I feel this is what God wants us to do. We feel like it's an opportunity we can't miss.

So, if you think about it, please pray for this team. It is bursting with potential, but only if we walk in the power of the Holy Spirit. Pray that we will do just that! Thanks.

NFL Playoffs 2011

Since I did so well predicting how the regular season would go, here's my predictions for the 2011 NFL postseason:

Wild Card Round
New Orleans over Seattle
Green Bay over Philadelphia
Baltimore over Kansas City
Indianapolis over NY Jets

Divisional Round
Green Bay over Atlanta
New Orleans over Chicago
Pittsburgh over Indianapolis
New England over Baltimore

NFC Championship Game
Green Bay over New Orleans

AFC Championship Game
Pittsburgh over New England

Super Bowl
Green Bay over Pittsburgh

I know, I know. At first glance this looks like a real homer pick because I am a huge Packers fan. But, I really believe the matchups could play out this way. My preseason prediction had the Packers against the Colts in the Super Bowl but I don't see any way now that the Colts can get past a good defense like Pittsburgh.

Packers-Steelers would be a great Super Bowl, wouldn't it? Two of the most well-known, widely-loved, historical teams in the NFL. I hope it comes out this way.

My Predictions

Below you'll find my preseason NFL predictions for how each team would finish in its division and how they actually finished the season. My picks are in black. The actual results are in red.

NFC West:
1. San Francisco
2. Seattle
3. Arizona
4. St. Louis

1. Seattle
2. St. Louis
3. San Francisco
4. Arizona

NFC South:
1. New Orleans
2. Atlanta
3. Carolina
4. Tampa Bay

1. Atlanta
2. New Orleans
3. Tampa Bay
4. Carolina

NFC North:
1. Green Bay
2. Minnesota
3. Chicago
4. Detroit

1. Chicago
2. Green Bay
3. Detroit
4. Minnesota

NFC East:
1. Dallas
2. NY Giants
3. Philadelphia
4. Washington

1. Philadelphia
2. NY Giants
3. Dallas
4. Washington*

AFC West:
1. San Diego
2. Kansas City
3. Denver
4. Oakland

1. Kansas City
2. San Diego
3. Oakland
4. Denver

AFC South:
1. Indianapolis
2. Houston
3. Tennessee
4. Jacksonville

1. Indianapolis
2. Jacksonville
3. Houston
4. Tennessee

AFC North:
1. Baltimore
2. Cincinnati
3. Pittsburgh
4. Cleveland

1. Pittsburgh
2. Baltimore
3. Cleveland
4. Cincinnati

AFC East:
1. NY Jets
2. New England
3. Miami
4. Buffalo

1. New England
2. NY Jets
3. Miami*
4. Buffalo*

The asterisks above show teams who finished in the same place I predicted they would finish. Yep, a grand total of 3.

My Top 10 of 2010

Here, in no particular order, is my Top 10 for 2010.

Top 10 what? Anything!

These are my top 10 events, experiences, people, situations, memories of this past year.

1. 10-year anniversary with my wife, Katie. We celebrated with a 10-day trip to Florida.

2. Sunday night football game at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisc., with good friends.

3. Getting paid to take pictures - something I love to do.

4. The start of my 9th and 7th years with my kids, Hanah and David, respectively.

5. My small group of sophomore guys - Dustin Yoder, Jayson Linhart, Tommy Klem, Brennan Angle, Justice Smith, Kenny Bearss, Marcus Poland, Zach Lamason, Trevor Mast, Cory Waycaster and Chandler Walters.

6. Moving into a new house. It's really an old house, but it's new to us. Plus, we remodeled nearly the entire thing.

7. The Packers.

8. Family. My sister got married. So did my sister-in-law. I'm now an uncle to three girls and a baby on the way. My parents are amazing. My in-laws are almost as amazing as my parents. Life is good.

9. My job. In the midst of almost overwhelming unemployment rates, I am very thankful to have a job, let alone one that I absolutely love, like the one I have now.

10. Friendships new and old. As we moved closer to some old friends, we have been able to reconnect with them. And it seems like every year brings new friendships with it.

Honorable mention (it's hard to narrow a whole year down to just 10): Keller Park Basketball Camp, NMC Senior High Summer Camp, Golf with my dad and with friends, Disc Golf with friends, Basketball - anytime, anywhere, New opportunities, Rediscovering old favorite music thanks to Grooveshark, Working with Carter Ammerman, Buying and selling things on Craigslist, Getting to be creative at work and home, Learning new skills ...

What's your Top 10?

Life and the Art of Home Remodeling

That's my house. My home.

Of course, that's not what it looks like now, but that's what it used to look like. It was built in 1916 by my wife's great grandfather. In its time it was one of the most modern homes in the Michiana area.

Today, the house looks a bit different - inside and out. The siding has changed, the porch is enclosed with windows, there are full-grown trees in the yard and it's on a street corner.

This past year, my wife and I have spent much of our time working on the inside of the house. We learned in February that we'd be moving there and immediately started working on the remodeling process. We completely gutted the entire top floor and refinished it, adding some new rooms and features along the way. We recently gave several rooms on the lower level a facelift and did a major renovation in the kitchen.

All the work has made 2010 a bit of a blur, but it also made it a very significant year in our lives.

Throughout the process of remodeling, I learned a lot. I learned skills. I learned about my abilities and limitations. I learned about other people's personalities and my own. I learned about my wife and kids. I learned a lot!

Here are some of the most significant lessons I've learned this past year:

Measure twice, cut once.
I've heard the saying many times in my life, but it became much more than a cute saying throughout this project. There are the obvious implications when it comes to the actual act of measuring and cutting, but there are other applications as well.

We did quite a bit of framing, hanging drywall and trim work. All of those tasks require very accurate measurements and cuts. If you fail to do so, you'll cost yourself a lot of time and money.

In the bigger picture, I learned the value of analyzing a situation before just jumping in. Similarly, the same lesson can be applied to thinking before you speak. It's not in my nature to be slow to act or speak, but I had to learn patience as I tried to get my house remodeled as quickly as possible.

When someone offers help, accept it.
I'm always tempted to go it alone. I don't know if it's just part of my personality or a function of being a man, but I find it much easier and less stressful to do things on my own than to try to lead someone else in helping me accomplish tasks. But, it didn't take me long to learn that this project was much too big for me to try to do by myself.

For example, it took two full weekends with 4-6 people working to clean out the upper level of our house and get it ready for the first steps toward remodeling. I could have done that job by myself, but it would have taken me at least a month of weekends and we didn't have that kind of time.

When others came to help I had to take time away from doing actual work to show them how they could help, but in the end we accomplished so much more together than I could have done alone.

And that leads me to the next lesson ...

Know your limits.
There were many parts of the remodeling process that I was able to do myself, but there were just as many that I could not have pulled off without help. Whether the help came in the form of actual assistance or in the giving of advice, I would have been stuck without input from others.

Several times I caught myself getting ready to jump into something that I was completely unprepared for. At some points I had to throw up my hands and call for help, but it was all part of the learning process.

Because of the help I received from others, I learned how to hang ceiling joists, frame walls, insulate walls and ceilings, build door jambs, build a proper header, use a table saw and many other tools.

My limits would not have allowed me to finish the project, but with help from others and a willingness to learn, I went beyond those limits to get it done.

Hug your wife and kids.
It was very tempting to pour every spare second into the work. And at times that's what I did. But that approach damaged my relationship with my wife and kids. The stress and lack of connection with the most important people in my life wore us down. We misplaced our priorities and paid dearly for it.

Fortunately, we spotted the problem early enough that we were able to change the trend and take breaks when it was needed. The work still got done, just not as quickly. But the relationships were restored and that is way more important than any project.

So, always take the time to hug your family. Spend time with the people who are most important to you. Then go back to work.

I Believe in You

This week has been full of unexpected lessons for me.

The most prominent has been the realization of the power of the words, "I Believe in You."

Lifechurch.tv pastor Craig Groeschel taught a series called I Believe in You recently and I listened to it on my way to work this week. The big idea of the series is that we all need to be involved in mentoring relationships. We all need to have mentors and we all need to be mentors. That's how Jesus modeled discipleship during his time on earth.

I've been a big believer in mentoring for a long time. Ever since someone said, "I believe in you," to me in high school it was clear to me that mentoring relationships are incredibly powerful and effective.

I had several mentors growing up, but the one that sticks out most to me is Jeff Komins. I wish he had a blog, or even a Facebook page so you could go there and learn a bit more about him. Jeff went to the same church as me when I was younger and I always looked up to him (even when I got taller than him). He was a great athlete (walked on to the Purdue football team) and that was all I needed in those days to have respect and admiration for someone. He was a little guy, but always put 110% effort into everything he did.

It took awhile for me to be able to establish a relationship with Jeff. You see, I had a bad attitude as a young teenager and was too cocky to realize I needed mentors in my life. I thought I had it all figured out and could handle things just fine on my own.

As I got older and wasn't having the success I had hoped for in sports, I started looking for ways to get better, get bigger and give myself a better chance to succeed at sports (basketball in particular). During the summer between my junior and senior years of high school, Jeff invited me to join him 2-3 times a week at his house to lift weights. I was hesitant at first because even though Jeff was not very tall, he had plenty of muscle. Plus, the way he approached everything with a great intensity was a little intimidating.

I got over my insecurities and took Jeff up on his offer and that summer turned out to be one of the best of my life. Not only did I get a lot stronger and put on muscle weight in preparation for basketball season, I learned an incredible amount about life from Jeff. He was a great example of a loving husband and father, a man striving to be more like Jesus every day and a sports enthusiast who thought it was important to stay in shape and keep yourself healthy.

Jeff and I would lift weights hard for an hour, drink a pitcher of sweet tea and play one-on-one basketball in his driveway. I spent many of my nights that summer at his house and I never once felt like I was imposing or unwelcome.

That relationship is exactly what I think of as the ideal mentoring relationship. An older guy invited a younger guy into his life, his home, and just spent time with him - sharing some insight along the way. I don't know if Jeff ever spoke these words to me, but he definitely said, "I Believe in You," in many different ways.

When I heard the series from Craig Groeschel I decided to share it with my Small Group of Sophomore guys at church. I wanted them to know that I believe in them and that they also need to find younger guys to invest in. Sure, I'm biased, but my Small Group is full of young guys with incredible potential for leadership. They are talented, funny, smart. But here's the thing - it's not because of their potential or their gifts that I believe in them, it's because God believes in them. He created them each with a purpose and all the abilities they need to carry out that purpose. He's done that in each one of us.

Reading the Bible and praying will reveal God's purpose and design for your life, but sometimes we humans need another human to affirm it. Sometimes we just need someone who is willing to spend time with us, encourage us, teach us, advise us, kick us in the butt, push us and pray for us. We are all called to do that.

So, find a mentor! Find someone to take under your wing and be his/her mentor!

It's part of your purpose in this life. It's part of why God created you!

My Thoughts on Halloween

Well, Jon Acuff said I had to do it, so here it goes:

I don't know what I think.

Yep, that's where I stand.

Honestly, I never thought this would be an issue for me but having kids changes things. We've never celebrated Halloween with our kids, who are now 8 and 6, but this year has been a whole new ballgame.

Not only are they old enough now to see/read/hear things about Halloween and start asking questions, but this year we live in a neighborhood for the first time in their lives. We actually lived in a neighborhood for the first 3 years of my daughter's life, but she was obviously too young to care about Halloween at that time.

So, this year they had the chance to see kids out and about trick-or-treating, young and old alike dressed up in all kinds of costumes and all taking home loads of candy. I think the candy part is what they really want, but they had plenty of questions for us this year. They wanted to know why we don't celebrate Halloween.

For us, it's simple. We don't like the holiday and what it stands for. But explaining that to them in a way that makes sense is difficult.

My best reasoning goes something like this:

Halloween is a day when people celebrate death, but we want to celebrate the life we have in Jesus.

Now I know not everyone views Halloween this way, but I'm pretty sure that's how the holiday started, right?

And, the older I get, the more sensitive I find myself to things that may be beyond our senses (angels and demons). Those are the things I don't like about Halloween. It seems like evil spirits, scary monsters and dead things are glorified on Halloween.

It's easy to change your family celebration of Halloween and make it about other things than death, but then shouldn't it look different too? I think celebrating the Harvest season is a great idea. But then that's kind of what Thanksgiving is for, right?

If it's all about letting kids dress up and go ask people for candy, doesn't that seem kind of strange? My kids play dress up all the time and they get candy from time to time, so those aren't good enough reasons to start celebrating Halloween.

The one issue we came across this year that made it a little difficult to hold fast to our stance against Halloween is when people come to your door for trick-or-treating. We just moved into the neighborhood in May and we've gotten to know a few of the neighbors, but there are still a lot that we don't know. Part of what we feel is our purpose and why God has placed us in our current home is to reach out to the people around us. So, the last thing we want to do is turn people away when they come to our door. And we also don't want them to think we're sitting in our house judging them for taking part in something we disapprove of.

So, we got some suckers and let our kids hand them out to any trick-or-treaters that came to the house. We didn't know how else to handle it, and our kids had a great time doing it. But, there was still this feeling of uneasiness with the whole thing for me.

So, like I said, I don't really know what I think. I can come up with all kinds of reasons to not participate in Halloween. I can't really think of anything good we are missing out on by not participating. I guess that makes it pretty clear. I just want to be able to explain it to my kids more clearly!