elder for small groups, preaching, communication, agitating, general critiquing

Nicknames: HSB, Smart-aleck, freak-of-nature, butthead

Duties: Small groups, preaching, communication, agitating, general critiquing,

My much better side:Kristyn and I met at church, I pulled the wool over her parents' eyes and so after a year of courting they were happy to release her to marry me. The other day she was giving me a hard time about something and so I told her, "Well, you married me so what does that say about YOU?" to which she calmly replied, "I'm stuck!" ;-)

Not too long after the Lord started blessing us with children:

Nathaniel Joshua - called home to be with Jesus before birth

Jeremiah Atticus - age 11 (You gotta read "To Kill A Mockingbird")

Madeleine Alyssa - age 9

Micah Robert - age 6

Seth Morgan - age 3

Life purpose: To live my life intertwined with the lives of others so that whether they choose to follow God or not they will know that a prophet has been among them. Ezekiel 2:3ff BFT*

Education: Masters of Divinity Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (www.swbts.edu), BS - Computer Science/Psychology Stephen F. Austin State University - (University among the pines, proud home of the fighting Lumberjacks).

Weekly joys in addition to hanging out with the family… Sand volleyball (Oh to be a surfer dude and hang out on the beach all day), harassing my wife, running, swimming, mountain biking, racquetball, weight lifting, wallyball, tennis, playing the guitar, cooking, etc. Of course, as per my life purpose about 98% of all of these activities are done with someone. Kristyn says I work out enough for the whole family … what's she talking about?

Periodic joys that I wish I could do weekly or even more often… Hanging out at the beach, snow skiing, camping, working on becoming a Greek scholar, fishing, water skiing, traveling the world, learning new languages, flying F-16s.

Axioms:

Ok you guys - If you drove a Porsche you would definitely take good care of it … so doggone it - is your wife not much more than some stinkin' car? So, take good care of her - Divert Daily, Withdraw Weekly, and Abandon Annually - Paul Burleson.

You are not a victim (repeat until you believe it).

The smartest genius in the world knows less than 1% of the world's cumulative knowledge so we're all at least 99% ignorant! - Dr. Bill Tolar - SWBTS

Struggles:

Just because someone doesn't agree with me or see it the way I do doesn't mean that they're an idiot (I'm repeating this until I believe it). God's last comment to me on the subject was that I was an arrogant twit until I learn to see how he loves people in spite of anything they do. (ouch)

Being too busy

Always being late

Must read …:

Bruchko by Bruce Olson

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

Wild at Heart by John Eldridge

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Otherland by Tad Williams - 4 books and only about 3,200 pages

Must see:

The Princess Bride - I used it and a homemade music video to propose to my wife … and it worked!

Quiz Show - beware of the roaring lion who seeks your destruction

The Matrix - what a spiritual parallel … not much can match this … how can the sequel do anything but disappoint?

Shawshank Redemption - what a picture of Jesus - everything he touches he brings redemption to

A River Runs Through It - sad but true

While You Were Sleeping

Things I MUST implement at church

Shared leadership in the church. When it comes to us humans Jesus works in the midst of community. We have shared leadership and it even extends to planning / working / critiquing the service and sermon. After doing it this way I don’t EVER want to go back to doing it in isolation.

At the end of the day, being followers of Jesus boils down to two things: love God and love your neighbor. It's all about loving God and being in community. If you don't move to that at some point then you're just playing church.

You don't have real community without conflict resolution. So, quit your whinin', suck it up and resolve your issues with your brother / sister. Christianity isn't for pansies.

* BFT - Bray Free Translation. Yes, I've had Greek and Hebrew. As the name implies it is a "loose" translation that hopefully captures the meaning without doing violence to the text (Like that expression? It's a seminary one. If you're really intellectual then you can't call it the Bible - you have to call it 'the text' or 'the Biblical text' or 'the Biblical materials' ). Anyway, to answer your question before you ask, the BFT version of the Bible isn't yet available for any of the popular Bible software packages - you have to come to Mosaic to get it!