Book #7 - Mere Christianity

I'll be honest, CS Lewis is one of my absolute favorite authors; but before this year, I had never read what many people consider to be his best book. My friend Daniel gave me this book a few years ago, and I never got the chance to read it. I made sure that I added it to my list of 30 books to read before my 30th birthday, because I wanted to read one of the pinnacles of 20th century Christian literature. Before I talk about the book, I'd like...

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Madden!!

At the end of August, every year, is a holiday of sorts for gamers and football fans. The new edition of Madden comes out, and people celebrate by playing the new version non-stop. I actually started playing Madden in 1994 on the Sega Genesis. My little brother and I would play. He would constantly run backwards when he got the ball so that I could win. I genuinely don't think we ever finished a single game. We'd get frustrated and/or bored with...

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Showing love...

One of the most awesome things about the church where I'm ministering is that we do a Wednesday night outreach ministry. Our community has a lot of needs, and one of those is food. So, every Wednesday night we prepare a meal for the people of our neighborhood.Last night, they came in droves! In the youth ministry alone we had 40 people (about 10 more than usual). Counting everyone, I think we had 100 people in our outreach program.It was also the first day of school, which meant that every single student was totally wired. I knew it was going to...

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Book #6 - The Shame and the Sacrifice

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is one of those characters in history that I wanted to read more about. I'll be honest, biographies are generally my least favorite genre of book to read. The problem isn't the historical significance, it's the inane amount of fluff that seems to be present in them. It took a while to get through this because there was a lot of fluff that I found to be uninteresting, and therefore picking the book up to read it was a chore at...

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Farmer Alex?

A little background is necessary to understand the scope of where I'm heading with today's thoughts. I grew up in Columbus, in apartments and rentals. The most formative of those years were spent in apartments where we didn't have room to grow plants or do things like that.Holly and I recently moved out onto a farm. Full disclosure, we are not operating the farm, it's operated by other people, but we do have a significant amount of land with which to "play." So, I've decided that I want to get some chickens and start a garden.This week, I've begun...

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REVIEW: Evening: Morning - The Digital Age

I don't consider myself to be nearly "snooty" enough to be a decent music critic. I don't know chords, and I can't really talk about the scientific dynamics of musical theory. I know what I like in music, and I can't always put into words exactly what I like about a certain album.If you've known me for any length of time, you know I had a major man crush on David Crowder and the entire David Crowder* Band. I practically worshiped at the altar of...

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