I am reading a book right now that is SO encouraging... it is rocking my world in a good way.

That book is Innovator's DNA.

The thing I love about this book is how encouraging it is to someone like me. I do ask a lot of questions and I come up with some crazy ideas... not all of them work, most don't ever even get shared with anyone but my beautiful wife. But I do enjoy creating, dreaming, and exploring new ideas.

This week I am going to challenge my self to ask twice as many questions as I did last week. Questions that uncover, not expose. Questions that push me/us forward. Questions that take us to the next level.

Here it goes...

Why would a parent attend this event?
What can help parents connect to their student's experience?
What does a parent hope to see in a Campus Life leader?
How can an outreach program hope to engage the family?
When a parent is missing from the home... what could an outreach organization offer?
Why is camp important?

Living in Expectation

Recently I found myself pondering my future. My future here on earth: should we buy a house, where will our kids go to school, how much money should we save for retirement. I began to think about these things to the point of obsession. It was then that I stepped back and asked myself, “What does the Bible actually say about my future here on earth?”

I found that the Bible actually says very little about our future here on earth, but it says a lot about our futures in heaven. I walked away from my study realizing that I should live my life in great expectation of heaven and our judgment day (Mat 6v25-34, Rom 14v12-10, Heb 4v3).

 “All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation” 1 Pet 1v3 (NLT)

Speaking the Good News

 During a recent series all of our high school clubs spent several weeks closely examining Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. This series of clubs led to many students deepening their faith and other trusting in Christ for the first time. Join us in praying with and for these students:

• Rejoice with us as these students can now join us in living in great expectation of eternal life with Christ. (1 Pet 1v3-7)
• Pray that these new and deepened Christ followers would truly live transformed lives. (1 Pet 1v13-15)
• Pray that all of us, including you, would love deeply and live in expectation of the things yet to come in Heaven. (1 Pet 1v22)

Graduation

This past week we traveled back to the Chicago/ Wheaton area to visit friends and attend my graduation from Spertus college. Here are some photos! And if you think the kids might be sitting too close to the lake... there is a platform in front of them... they were not in immediate danger of falling in...

At least not when the picture was taken. JT did take a little slip into the water. But besides being a little wet, he survived just fine.

Joshua's Birthday is coming!

Stationery card

View the entire collection of cards.

Family Dance

We had a little family dance party tonight. Lots of fun... and yes mommy cut loose on the dance floor too... she just happened to be the night's photographer:

Photos:::
a

Video:::
#

Park Next Door–Winter Edition

#

Already the kids LOVE the park next door. Here’s a fun video of them playing in the snow with mommy at the park.

Books Books and More Books

Picasa Content

JT and Susannah LOVE books. Mostly because their mom loves books and takes them to the library regularly. K recently discovered that each person can ONLY check out 150 books from the Lincoln Library system…

That means that we could walk out with 600 books!

Don’t worry, we haven’t checked out that many… yet.