Ok, well I’m finally here and settled in Portland. So excited to be here! I pick my family up from the airport in 2 hrs and I have he house COMPLETELY unpacked (except for 3 boxes which my wife wanted to go through). Hows that!? I really wanted to make this as easy as possible on my wife…and make all you guys look really bad to yours

I arrived Friday, unpacked Saturday, and had our first gathering Sunday morning.

I’m excited to be here where over 100k college students are on campuses! I’m excited about having a church that embraces them. I’m excited to have a church of couples who will model godly marriages for those anxiously awaiting their wedding day. I’m excited to speak as a lead pastor on how college-age people are vital in our church context. I’m excited about the next phase of implementing my vision of making college-age ministry a normal part of every church context.

Hitting the ground running…

I’ve never been on GodTube before, but someone sent me this video. I know nothing about this guy, but must say it’s pretty good.

Well sometimes you hear stories that sound too good to be true (but actually are), and sometimes you hear the horror stories. I think I now have one of the latter ones.

Bummer.

I have some friends that used this moving company. They said it was a great experience, got all their stuff, and it was a great price. So, I used the same moving company. My quote was good, they took really great care of my stuff – wrapped everything way better than I could’ve even dreamt of – they had one guy pack our entire kitchen in about an hour…nice guys, etc.

I bought them lunch and even one of the guys a pack of cigarettes (which I previously would’ve never done out of fear of someone in our church seeing me, but I’m moving now so who really cares? j/k – sort of).

Don’t worry smokers don’t go to hell, they just smell like it.

Anyway, everything was going great until the end when the guy told me my total price was more than double my quote. Not much I could do when all my stuff was already on the truck now was there?

I’m pleased to announce that customer service has now given me a very small discount off the higher total. Whew, that was a close one…

Ok, I know a common stigma for college-age people is that they’re “flakey.” I wanted to throw out a couple thought’s on this:

(1) It’s true in many cases, but not all.

(2) I have found that they’re only flakey in things they don’t find valuable.

(3) Inconsistency of life and thought is the reason they’re considered to be adolescents, so this should not surprise us.

(4) I think over the years I’ve ran into more that aren’t this way than those who are.

(5) Although I’m more consistent with my “yes” being yes than most of them, I think I’m still this way…but I’ve just learned to make it spiritual.

(6) If we get excited about the teachable moments of this rather than frustrated with inconsistency we can have very meaningful discussions.

(7) They can also be exactly the opposite when they’re passionate about something. The key is to show them people who are passionate about the right things!

(8) Patience and a willingness to pay the price of time is what we need.

A lot of college-age people do really stupid things in the name of love. Well, truthfully, we all have. We can also do some really good things. I remember when I was dating Barbara. I did some cool things for her.

I think the phrase, “Love is blind” has a little truth to it – but in a different way than we usually think. Typically we use this in contexts like when people who are pursuing marriage, but not seeing the reality of the whole picture. They only see certain parts of their partner and are completely blinded to others. We might see the problem, but “love is blind,” right? These counseling sessions are always fun!

Well I no longer think love is blind. I’m beginning to think this phrase, which we all use, is theologically incorrect.

I see numerous amounts of couples fall into sexual sin, dishonor God and dishonor themselves and yet claim to truly love each other. Can this be? Now, please know that I understand the feelings and emotions of hormones…been there.

But by saying God loves us, don’t we mean He looks out for our best interest? Doesn’t that mean that He is pulling us toward holiness? It seems like true love doesn’t lead or push anyone toward paths of unrighteousness…right?

Maybe, just maybe, true love is actually the one thing that sees clearly!

Maybe it’s lust that’s blind…

I was playing “jump rope” with my daughter Karis…with a slinky. Go figure. The imagination of kids is amazing.

She was backing up and swinging it like you would a jump rope. I just so happened to be taking this picture when she let the slinky go. Of course, it hit me right in the…