Is Jesus On Fire?

Every morning before my daughter heads to kindergarten I read her a Bible story. This morning I read something Jesus said and asked her if there was anything she didn’t understand.

“Well…. where was Jesus when he said this?”

“In Israel. Why?”

“I was wondering if he was on earth or in heaven when he said it.”

“He was on earth, honey.”

And then my three-year old son said, “Or on fire.”

That’s almost certainly not as funny to you as it was to me, but I present it here for your consideration. Whenever Jesus said something, he was either in heaven, on earth, or on fire.

Settling In To Our New Digs

We just moved from our old apartment to a house elsewhere in Menlo Park. So far we love it! The kids are especially jazzed about the yard and the ensuing prospects for outdoor play.

A big thank you to those who helped us move!

augmentation breast mississauga Props to Ben, Katie, Alan, John, Desirae, Irene, Chris, Femi, Ethan, Lindsey, Scott (way to serve with your postoperative self), Jen and Aaron. Lindsey and Sue deserve special mention because they each watched our kids part of the day, which meant Paula and I could both get stuff done. And a special shout-out to Emily who was planning to help but had to bail due to a last-minute medical emergency (get well soon).

Highlights from the move:

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• Noticing that a disproportionate number of students decided to wear their Chi Alpha shirts for the move. My heuristic was to wear a shirt I didn’t care about… which makes me wonder how our students really feel about our shirts.
• Happy Donuts for breakfast. Yum. Bonus: watching Ben get a sugar rush.
• Hearing my name used as a virtual curse word when people realized how many boxes of books they would have to carry. They love the erudite sermons, they just hate the way I prepare for them.
• Backing a U-Haul into my narrow driveway. Yikes!
• Chris getting scratched by a rose bush and me (for once) having the right line at the right time, “He doesn’t need a band-aid – he needs a Y chromosome.”
• New York Pizza for lunch. Two King Kongs and a Large. Excellent.
• Having our internet activated on the day we moved in. Sweet!
• Our new neighbor dropping off brownies. How very kind.
• Having our super-studly moving crew stay to help us assemble and lay out furniture. Way above and beyond the call of duty. THANK YOU!
• Costco Hot Dogs for supper. Those dogs are delicious. And huge.
• Double bonus: watching Ben cuddle up after a hard day’s work and drift into la-la land.

For those to whom it matters, our new address is 1032 Ringwood Ave, Menlo Park, CA 94025.down periscope free

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California Is Amazing

In the last few days, my work has taken me to preach in Sonora, CA (where I was able to take an excursion to Yosemite Valley and also stand upon Glacier Point divx machine girl the

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they wait movie ), it has caused me to spend a day at Seacliff Beach

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(near Santa Cruz) helping with a youth camp, and it’s allowed me to have lunch with a worship pastor in San Francisco. And in the middle I got to hang out with some of the most amazing people in the world at Stanford University.

If you’re keeping score, that’s two instances of mountainous beauty, one day of beachy fun, one incident of cosmopolitan elegance, and several heaping sides of academically elite intellectual stimulation. All in under a week.

I’m blown away at (a) how cool my state is and (b) how delightful my job is.

If your life is insufficiently fabulous, consider coming to California to do college ministry. It rocks.

Feeling Tired

I’m quite tired.

We had our final Chi Alpha worship meeting of the quarter last night. It went awesome. Worship was phenomenal, I think the message was well-received, and we got to hang out and talk for a while afterwards. Plus we actually ended the year with more numbers than we began the year with. That’s rare in campus ministry. If you average the first three weeks of the year and multiply by about 80%, that’s a more typical number to end with. The growth has been great – but a larger ministry means more people to meet with, which means less flexibility in my schedule.

So I’m tired from the academic year.

I’ve also been teaching an extension class for AGTS in Sacramento every Thursday this month. Tonight is the final course. It’s a 2 hour drive there, a four hour class, and then a two hour drive back. It’s been very fun and I’ve learned a lot through teaching the course (which I’ve heard is the experience of most teachers).

But it’s pretty draining. That’s an extra 8 hour day every week. And that’s if traffic behaves.

And I’m serving on a task force for the Assemblies. We had a video chat this morning which lasted about 2.5 hours. It was rewarding, but also draining.

Finally, I’m supposed to be doing a lot of web stuff for Chi Alpha. I just haven’t been able to prioritize it lately. Yeek. Lots of low-hanging fruit, but no time to reach out and pluck it.

All in all, I’m very much looking forward to the change of schedule that comes with the summer. I’ll still be busy, but at least I’ll be busy doing different things. download shuttle terror by night download

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Congratulations, Greg

My brother just got engaged. There are rumors of a YouTube video of the proposal waiting to surface, but for now you’ll have to be content with the written story download the golden compass

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Congrats, bro. Wish you both the best.

It's Been One Of Those Days

Before starting the workday this morning, I finished online traffic school (you can do that in California) due to a speeding ticket from the end of last year. One of the more profound lessons I learned – and I quote – “do not drive with nails in your tires.” I guess I was speeding because I lacked that knowledge. Good thing I got that cleared up.

After finishing traffic school I headed for the shower. Upon emerging, I discovered that Dana had very nearly broken Xander’s finger by slamming the door on it. His pinky was compressed to about 1/4 of its normal diameter and was a dull gray in color. Even after it returned to its normal size and color, we were still a little worried. Fortunately, he had a scheduled doctor’s appointment and the doctor confirmed that his finger was A-OK. And then gave him three shots. Poor guy.

On top of all that, Paula was sick.

And I got around to answering a letter from my district asking me to serve on the Parliamentary Committee at District Council. That’s right – the Parliamentary Committee. I am officially that guy. I told them yes. If you’re invited to serve then you’re already that guy

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Good stuff happened, too. For instance, I got to talk with a Ph.D. candidate about faith. She came to the Francis Collins lecture and wanted to follow up with some questions. We had a great conversation. I hope I was helpful to her. She seemed quite touched when we prayed at the end of our time together.

But on the whole, it just felt like one of those days.

We Just Felt Our First Earthquake

We just felt our first earthquake!

It only took us 5 years living in the Bay Area.

Apparently it was this one mystery alaska movie download .

Things My Students Have Said About Me

Actual comments my students made about me on a recent survey:

1. the balder the better
2. exuberant, zany, wacky, over the top
3. Unique, John Stewart meets the apostle Paul.
4. prone to shouting in high pitched voices
5. pedagogic connoisseur – appreciates good teaching and apt quotes.
6. occasional diarrhea of the mouth
7. …unconventional
8. wonderfully inappropriately humorous, great at coming up with mathematical-scientific analogies for facets of spirituality (balloons and 2nd derivatives anyone?), best at representing Jesus on film

It’s great to feel loved. And mocked.

The Big 1–0

I remember seeing a sermon series once titled “Marriage: Closest Thing To Heaven, Closest Thing To Hell.” Brilliant title.

Ten years ago at this time I had just finished hiding my car from my groomsmen to prevent any untoward pranks and was at First Assembly of God in Lafayette, LA getting ready to be married under the auspices of Eric Treuil (who was using the authority invested in him by God and the state of Louisiana).

Three quick memories:

• Paula was very beautiful in her bridal dress.
• I began fidgeting with my ring while still in the sanctuary, a habit I’ve continued to this day. I don’t know why, but whenever I’m thinkig about something I’ll either spin it around on my finger or take it off and put it back on a few times. Whatever the cause, you can see me doing it on the wedding tape as we recess out of the sanctuary.
• I had a pile of eclairs as my grooms cake courtesy of high school buddy George Byron Noel. He’s a really good chef and my cake was delicious (as my brother can attest, since he ate approximately half of it ).

We headed out on a honeymoon that included a stop in New Orleans and culminated in a stay at Southern SALT (now known as the Uprising) where I will be preaching in just a few days. It’s funny how things seem to come full-circle sometimes.

10 years. Much closer to heaven than hell by my reckoning.

Happy anniversary, Paula. I’d marry you again in a heartbeat.

Introducing Alexander Davis

Alexander Davis was born 11/17/2006 at 12:24pm after a very quick labor (from the time Paula began to push until the time he was completely outside was four minutes). He weighed 6lbs and 7oz and was 19.75 inches long.

Our plan is to refer to him as Xander (instead of the full Alexander or the briefer Alex). We’ll see how it takes. Dana seems to like it, so that’s a plus.

We’re still deciding about the middle name. We’ve got it narrowed down to three and we want to sleep on it before making our choice.

I’m too wiped to type much more now, check back later for more details. Until then, enjoy the photo gallery.