tonight my wife and i went out on a "date". it was great. because of her work schedule at the hospital and my schedule with music and traveling, it seems like we haven't had a ton of time to just hang out together. so we had an early dinner at Trio's in downtown greenville. (note to men: if you want to take your lady friend to a nice, classy resteraunt in gville, go to Trio's) We had excellent service. The guy knew his stuff, and made sure that we were takin care of. After that we went to some other stores downtown, then to the mall. Its so much fun to have nights like this. In fact, Megan and I are going to make this a normal thing that happens. Its refreshing to get away for a night and just go hang out and talk and catch up with no cell phones or laptops or anything. So, the point of this post: Date nights are good.

Book Recommendation: "Choosing to Cheat" by Andy Stanley. This is a great book that discusses what we value most in our lives. If any of you are like me, some days family is the last thing we think about, especially in the midst of just being busy with work and so forth..and it really does not need to be that way. Its something I'm really trying to work on right now. In fact, a review on Amazon sums it up like this, I like it:

"You love your family. You love the challenges of your job. But there's not enough of you to go around. Somebody isn't getting as much of your attention as they want or deserve. This little book presents a strategic plan for resolving the tension between work and home--reversing the destructive pattern of giving to your company and career what belongs to your family. But be forewarned...you will have to cheat."

So check it out and be blessed my friends!

bg

just thought i'd post some thoughts tonight....

ok,
so the draft was last night. i joined in via ichat with my brother, who also is in the same league. he was giving me the play by play, then all of a sudden he reveals to me that i have recieved the first pick. then for some reason i became a lot more serious about fantasy football, it was weird. i'm not gonna lie to ya, i feel like i have a decent team. not the best maybe, but a team that should make it into the playoffs i would think. a lot of people who do fantasy football tend to do a ton of 'homework', as philip told me last night. but you see, bg does not do that...no no no...i didnt do much homework throughout my career as a student in school, i dont need to start now with fantasy football. i pull up on espn and yahoo the list of players available, and i pick away. no homework, no research, just pick em. and believe it or not, i will probably be even with, or maybe even beat the people who spend countless hours doing "homework".

by the way, speaking of philip i need to say this. He sent me a message on ichat, asked me who i was going to take for my 1st pick, i told him LT(went with LT over stephen jackson, we'll see how that goes). What did Philip say? He proceeded to tell me that LT had broken his foot yesterday, and that i made a really stupid pick. (keep in mind, i dont do my fantasy ftbll 'homework', so i totally believed him). so i got mad b/c i wouldve thought that friendship would trump fantasy football, and that he would have warned me about the broken foot of LT...then after searching ESPN frantically, I figured out that he lied to me, in order to better his chances of getting LT. So what is the point of that story you ask? I dont really know to be honest. It should be a fun year in fantasy football.

Roster for 'Jesse and the Rippers':
QB - Drew Brees and Ben Roethlisberger
RB - Ladainian Tomlinson and Deshaun Foster and Fred Taylor
WR - Chad Johnson and Braylon Edwards and Devery Henderson and Isaac Bruce
TE - Jeremy Shockey and Marcus Pollard
Defense - New England and Dallas
K- Robbie Gould and David Akers

I was surfing the virb network, and doing my daily blog readings (which i'm going to post some links soon to my favorite blogs), and one dudes blog that i love to read is a friend of mine named Wil Martin. He posted a blog about how he and his church Marathon North
love to reach out to the unchurched. It really is a great post and really challenged me and even convicted me a little to be quite honest. So, therefore, I'm just going to quote him(with his permission of course) on my blog today b/c he summed it up well.

it goes something like this:

"North is a church designed to reach people who have never been interested in church. People that conventional churches could never reach and don't seem to want to. People who think "church" is stale and therefore have never been a part of it.

You know what I love about unchurched people? They are totally real. They don't know that you're supposed to be fake when you come to church. They haven't been trained to act like they have it all together on Sunday morning. Some of the most refreshing conversations I've had at church lately have been with people who aren't trying to be something they're not just because they are at church.

When we first started North we had to brace ourselves a bit. I remember one Sunday a guy stopped Evan (our guitarist) in the parking lot and said, "dude, that service kicked [insert vulgar word for backside]!" Most churches would cringe at a statement like that describing their worship service, but we love it! We realize that those are the people we want in our church. Why? Because Jesus wants them, and for some odd reason other churches don't.

Cleaning up your act before you come to church makes about as much sense as washing off before you take a shower. And unchurched people understand that much better than us churchy types. They bring their messed up habits and shortcomings with them and have an opportunity to learn that God loves them despite all those things. It's much harder to understand and accept God's grace when we convince ourselves that we have it all together."

great post wil, i'm praying for you and your ministry at Marathon North. thanks for letting me share this post with my friends.

people, check out wil's blog here.

bg

And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to [Jesus'] disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" But when [Jesus] heard it, he said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.' For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners."

//Matthew 9:11-13 ESV