“Did you preach?”

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Both Joleen and I are halfway through our 10-week parental leaves (which has included 2 weeks of vacation time to cover the trip to Korea and post-trip time zone adjustment). Ethan has apparently noticed that things are a bit different around here these days. A few times, Ethan has asked one of us, “Did you … Read more

Life Lessons from Fantasy Football

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Last year, I wrote about my first year of playing fantasy football in a new league at Centre Grove UMC. We’re playing again this year, and I’m learning that some of the tips for playing fantasy football are also good life lessons. Do your homework. Doing your homework begins in the preseason. A numbers of … Read more

Involving Kids in Mission

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In the days and weeks leading up to our first trip to Korea — and to becoming parents — we wrote about the kind of culture we wanted to create in our home and family life. Part of that included Shaping a Servant Culture. To help our children become servants and givers, we want to … Read more

Fluid Situation 2.0

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We we arrived home from Korea three weeks ago, and it’s been almost that long since we wrote about Sarah and Ethan’s adjustment. It was, and still is, a fluid situation. Overall, Sarah is doing well, but we have our moments — mainly related to sleeping and the car seat (occasionally). These two areas were … Read more

Zero to 22 and 32 to 20

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In the last few weeks, we have intentionally tried not to make (or at least not to write about) too many comparisons between the early transitioning experiences of Ethan and Sarah (in terms of their personalities because (1) that may not be fair to them and (2) we’re still getting to know Sarah’s personality). But … Read more

Cultivating Creativity

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I have long been interested in the subject of creativity, and as a pastor/leader and a parent, how to cultivate creativity in others. In the past, I’ve written about creativity through a review of the movie, “The Astronaut Farmer” (see “The Astronaut Farmer” and Creativity). I also wrote about creativity when we were thinking about … Read more

Stay on Track

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I have noticed a number of commercials from Fidelity Investments lately. They’re the commercials with the green line on the ground that offers guidance and direction. Last week, one especially caught my attention. In the commercial, the financial advisor encourages the client that the plan they worked out for his retirement “makes sense” and that … Read more

Eclectic Eating in Korea

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The first time we were in Korea, we ate at one really nice Korean restaurant, another middle-of-the-road restaurant, and had one home cooked feast in someone’s home. We also ate at places like Starbucks (about the only thing open our first morning in Seoul due to the Lunar New Year holiday), Outback, and Bennigan’s (taken … Read more

Already. Not Yet.

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In our theological education, we learned the phrase “already, not yet” to describe the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is “here,” it’s “at hand,” it is “among us.” But there is also the sense where the kingdom of God will be fully realized or culminated at some point in the future. It’s already … Read more

Venturing Out

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Feeling like we needed to get out for a day, we decided at the last minute (the night before), that while the weather was still decent, that we’d go to the Pittsburgh Zoo on Monday. It was a nice day, upper 50s and sunny. The zoo was not very crowded, and due to the more … Read more