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My New Hobby

March 30, 2011 in Finance, Hobbies with 5 Comments

I tried to think of a fancier title for this post. Something like “savings gangsta” or maybe “coupon killa”, but it might be a little premature for that.  I’ve been tossing around ideas for a new hobby and I think I’ve landed on the fine art of couponing. Living on the edge, I know.

Fact is, the price of gas and everything else is going up and well, my income isn’t. Couple that reality with my penchant for finding good deals and the thrill of the hunt for said good deals, and the path to my new hobby was virtually laid out before me.

After spending a couple weeks gathering coupons, researching various blogs and getting pointers from a couple friends who are pros, I planned my attack and set out on my first kill Tuesday after work. The spoils of my conquest were about $50 worth of stuff that I scored for just a little over $10 at CVS. Combining coupons with their in-store specials, I managed to grab 4 bottles of AXE body wash, 4 tubes of Colgate Total toothpaste and 2 sticks of deodorant for basically $1 per item, plus a little tax.  If you’re doing the math, that’s 80% off. Talk about booty! Oh. My. God, Becky! Look at those savings! They are so. big.

The girl who rang me up at CVS commented, “your wife must love you.” Oh, she will. She will. (no coupon for that)

I’m pretty excited for how my first stab at this turned out. I’m doing lots of research, learning the ins and outs of how to get the best deals and finding out how all this works, but I figure why not use some shopping strategery and save money on the stuff I would buy anyway. Look, I get around and I’m just trying to make a dollar out of 15 cents like my man Pac. It’s hard out here in the mean streets of Brentwood, Tennessee.

Save money, track down the best deals and toss in some good old fashioned adventure… It’s like Dave Ramsey and Sherlock Holmes meet Indiana Jones. In fact, I might start shopping in a deerstalker and with a whip.

I’ll be documenting my continuing couponing adventures here as they unfold.

What is a hobby you enjoy? Or are you a “couponer”? What are some money-saving tips you could share?

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What It’s Really About

March 25, 2011 in Encouragement, Faith, Life with 2 Comments

I had dinner with a friend last night. Part of our conversation centered around the current season of our lives.  As we both wondered out loud about what it really is that God is doing in each of our respective lives, I couldn’t help but think about the gift of perspective that is given over time.

I’d like to think it’s a pretty common occurrence to be in the middle of any given life situation or scenario and ponder, “what is THIS really about?”

Is this about my current job?
Am I here because of THIS opportunity?
Is this stop a destination or a bridge to what’s next?
Is this about developing and investing in new relationships?

These questions and more are often par for the course for thinking about life seasons.

As we talked through this, I asked my friend, “when has it EVER been about what you THOUGHT it was about?”

In other words, I can look back now over many seasons of my life and see quite plainly that the take-away from that season was nothing like what I thought it was while I was actually in the middle of it.

The other day, I was thinking through a particular situation I’m walking through along these lines and tweeted the following thought:

There is invaluable perspective just over our shoulder that we often miss when consumed with what stands before us.

Perspective is highly underrated and without it, we are destined to wander in the proverbial wilderness for lack of grasping the wisdom locked inside life experiences.  Many times I didn’t fully realize what God was doing in my life until I was on the other side of it and could look back from where I stood after the fact.

A great example is the current season of life I’m in now. I think a lot about what things were like a year ago. Things were hard and I often felt like I was spiraling out of control, unsure what was happening, my heart in vertigo. I often pondered what it was all about, but couldn’t see clearly at the time. A year later, I still have a healthy set of challenges and opportunities to learn, grow and develop, but they are quite different from those I had this time last year.  Having walked through what I did, I can look back, extract the perspective and wisdom that wasn’t available to me from where I was, and stand on top of those things to face what is now before me.  A year from now, I hope to be able to do the same with the things that I’m challenged with right now.

After you begin to intentionally process your life’s experiences that way, it tends to shape how you approach and react to what’s happening right now. It tends to be less about what’s happening right now and more about reading God’s resume of bringing clarity out of tumultuous seasons… in time.

A big part of being a person of faith is understanding God works in both the broad strokes of a lifetime and the exactness of each moment, but you don’t always realize that when pressed up against the canvas.

Very rarely is it ever about what you think it’s about.

What perspective can you extract from where you’ve been that helps bring wisdom to where you are?

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“F” You

March 16, 2011 in church, Humor, Uncategorized with 8 Comments

I don’t write the news, folks, I just report it.

I just came across this video of Pastor R.A. Vernon preaching, and well… here you go.

The new “F” word, huh?

Wow.   8O

What’cha got to say about it, Cee-Lo Green??

I see you driving ’round town
With the girl I love and I… forgive you!

Although there’s pain in my chest
I still wish you the best, and I… forgive you!

You know someone is just ITCHING to rewrite that one now!

Touch your neighbor and say F YOU!

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A Year And Some Change

February 28, 2011 in Blogging, Encouragement, My Story with 16 Comments

Today is my birthday. Well, not MY birthday, but my blog’s birthday, rather. Today, An Idol Heart is one year old!

I started this blog one year ago today. When I decided to start An Idol Heart it was because my world had turned upside down and I wanted to start telling the story, even while it was unresolved.

This time a year ago, I had just walked away from my career of 8 years, I was unemployed, I was two months in to being at a new church and was a little over a month in to diving head first into a community group I had joined. I was struggling with how to let go of the things I had allowed my life to be defined by and I was falling apart.

On why I decided to name this blog An Idol Heart, I had recently come to understand that my heart was indeed “an idol factory that mass produces idols.”  That was, at once, a very sobering yet dizzying realization, and one that still reverberates with me today.  A couple months earlier I had finished reading Timothy Keller’s “Counterfeit Gods”, a book that, to put it simply, completely undid me.

Going back now to read what I wrote as my first post a year ago was a pretty emotional experience. At that time, I was so afraid. The false bottom I had built in my heart was falling out and I felt like I had nothing to work with… but words.  I had no idea what the next day, let alone the next year would look like.

One year later, my story looks very different. I am now working in ministry on staff at Cross Point Church in Nashville, the church I had just come to when all this unraveling began to happen. The ministry I’ve received at Cross Point over the past year has done so much to heal my heart and teach me who I am.  Now, I lead ministry teams there and get to help others. The community group I had just come to in hopes of finding new friends when my world was turning upside down has been immeasurably instrumental in how God has reshaped my life this past year. I now co-lead that group of around 150 people and get to regularly share my story of how God rescued me from the pursuit of myself, challenging others to embrace uncertainly, get out of their comfort zones and be intentional about how they invest in this “stretch between” season of their life.

More than anything though, I am learning more each day how my identity does not rest in where my check comes from, but rather where my help comes from and the finished work of Christ on the cross.

I still don’t know what tomorrow will look like and I’m learning to live by faith daily, but looking back over the past year, I know what it was about. God was after my heart. He wanted to rewire it and “make it again into another vessel”.

This past Friday night, Timothy Keller, whose ministry has been such a key part of my story, was in Nashville on a tour for his new book, “King’s Cross”.  I went to hear him speak and also had the opportunity to personally thank him for his ministry and how God has used it to wreck and rebuild me.

He made a statement that I haven’t been able to shake since I heard it. Singularly giving perspective to much of the last year of my life, He said,

“Sometimes, the delays of Jesus are because of details and information that we don’t yet have access to. Ultimately, God gives you what you would have prayed for if you knew everything He knew.”

And there it is.

Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails. (Proverbs 19:21)

One year ago, my prayers were very different. I’m so thankful that God heard my prayers but still gave me what I would have asked for, had I only known. Not getting what I thought I wanted is the best thing that could have happened to me.

What life perspective have you seen while looking back over the things you have been through?

 

Collision: ART & ACTION

February 24, 2011 in Community, Film, Service with 3 Comments

One of my favorite things to do is create environments where people can connect with God, with each other and with something bigger than themselves.  The opportunity to help engineer an experience that is a collision of all those things is so exciting to me!

This past Sunday night, Stretch, the young adult community I co-lead at Cross Point, hosted the first in what will be a series of ART & ACTION events. The vision of the ART & ACTION concept is to design experiences that engage a variety of artistic expressions to create awareness and action around a particular cause. I had been wanting the group to do something like this for awhile, but it just didn’t pan out until now.

For our first ART & ACTION event, we partnered with Atlanta-based Unthinkable, hosting a screening of their documentary, “My Concrete Mattress”, which captures and portrays the lives of four homeless people: John, Dwight, Deborah and Anthron. The goal of the film is to move beyond the stereotypes of homelessness to display the true stories of four people, and educate viewers of lives affected by poverty.  We were joined by Unthinkable’s Johnathan Goode and Wes Peters, who created the film. Jonathan shared the vision and heart behind “My Concrete Mattress” and challenged us all to both see and serve the homeless and oppressed through the limitless love of God, not just our own compassion.

Check out the “My Concrete Mattress” trailer:

We were also joined by guests from four local organizations who serve Nashville’s homeless community in a number of unique ways. Representatives from Safe Haven Family Shelter, The Bridge Ministry, Room In The Inn and Nashville Rescue Mission were all on hand to speak after the documentary, sharing the heart and vision of their respective organizations, as well as presenting practical volunteer opportunities for people to immediately get involved in. To move hearts is one thing, to move feet is another.

Between the impactful documentary, the challenging words of Jonathan Goode and hearing the hearts of all our guests, it was indeed a powerful night. It was amazing to see God at work in the room, moving in people’s hearts as they took in all that was presented.

As Stretch is still relatively new, we’re still experimenting with lots of ideas, experiencing lots of firsts and constantly dreaming of unique ways to engage this group and consistently be moving outside our comfort zones together. As such, I was honestly unsure how many people would even show up for something like this.  However, I was absolutely overwhelmed at the response of our group, and we had a new record attendance of 141 people on Sunday night.  I was blown away, not only by the number of people who came, but by the level at which they engaged and responded.  That night was like a spiritual Red Bull that fueled the vision of what we do at Stretch so much more!   I believe we successfully executed a beautiful collision of ART & ACTION that is immediately impacting how and why people serve and do outreach. We’re already talking through details for our next ART & ACTION event in May!

It is such an honor to be able to serve, do life and pursue Christ with this amazing community of people we call Stretch.

Below are some pictures from the ART & ACTION event.

Jonathan and Wes are currently on The Unthinkable 2011 American Tour, screening My Concrete Mattress all across the country. For more information about My Concrete Mattress and hosting The Unthinkable Tour and a screening of “My Concrete Mattress” in your city, visit www.beunthinkable.org.

What is a unique way that you are engaging the community around you?

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