In Redstick with a wife on a snowy day.

There is a very popular book by Mark Batterson titled "In a pit with a lion on a snowy day".  Here is a picture of my wife and I as we create our own book.  It should be out in 6 months if we get the funds.

Possible Christmas Prank

Ok, so I was helping Em decorate some cookies when I had a great idea of a prank. Have you ever seen those colorful sprinkles you put on an ice cream or on a cookie? Well they make individual flavors too. One of those flavors is chocolate. It looks a lot like mice poop, lol. I thought about taking it and spreading it around the kitchen during Thanksgiving at my in-laws house. You know... like in the silverware drawer, food cabinet, near the dog food, lol. Thought I'd pass something fun along for Christmas.

Feel free to join in and tell us some other great pranks.

Thanksgiving Thoughts

Thanksgiving is over and its almost time to head back home.  Spending time with family is always fun and yet it can be hard to say goodbye, especially after having such a good time.  I thought I'd give some highlights of my Thanksgiving trip to Georgia.

.01  I got a car over Thanksgiving.  I have an awesome brother in-law/sister-in-law.  They bought a new vehicle and gave us one of their old ones.  Nice little blessing for sure!

.02  Nathan Rau.  Enough said, Em's brother is absolutely a blast to hang out with.  I think its because he's still young enough that he's immature but he's old enough that he finds things humorous that I find funny as well.  Most of our time was spent pulling pranks on each other or traveling to below...

.03 Quick Trip is probably the coolest gas station that I've ever gone to.  They have great snacks and it is a great little escape.  

.04  Wii has been a great lifesaver for the weekend.  It was great to watch Em's grandparents who are aging play bowling on the wii.  They played in the comfort of the chair/living room and told stories of their past bowling adventures.  Not to mention the niece and nephew enjoyed time on the wii as well.  Most of their time was spent going around in circles playing mario cart.

.05  This year I spent Thanksgiving with my wife's parents and I'm so grateful for such an awesome family.  Its always interesting to join up with another family who has different traditions and ideas.  Not that this is a bad thing.  It just makes things that much more fun.  

I haven't really talked about any particular stories and maybe I'll give that later.  I just wanted to say how great this thanksgiving was!  

Question

Ok, here'​s a quest​ion for all of you out there​.​ I've been looki​ng for some humor​ous video​s from youtu​be or stupi​d video​s.​ 

Anyho​w I was wonde​ring what video​s you'​ve watch​ed latel​y that has made you laugh​. ​Let me know,​

Brian​

Styles of Christianity

Today I've been dwelling on the thought of the many different styles of Christianity.  I had a great conversation with a good friend yesterday that made me think.  Are our styles becoming divisive or are they truly operating as a part of the body of Christ?  

Let me explain this with the understanding that I'm talking about churches in America.  Some churches are popular because of the style of their music.  Some churches are popular because they put on great programs.  Other churches are popular because of what it offers the people who come (children's church, youth group, singles ministries, shut-in ministries and you get the idea).  And some churches are established because of barriers... i.e. spanish speaking churches or churches for the poor/homeless.  

Its easy to look at all of these styles and say how awesomely diverse the Kingdom of God is.  And that is a 100% true statement.  Diverse styles are necessary!  I guess my question comes from the discussions of yesterday's blog and myspace post.  

Are our styles a reflection of what this diverse nation needs or are we just dividing our churches according to the styles of ministry that we prefer it to look like?  Here's a few examples...

.01 Cutting Edge Churches:  They have the lights, video, rock bands/rap groups, cafe', flashy designs and fun for the entire family.  While that connects with a younger generation what about those who are older?  What about reaching to the older generations who aren't saved?  Is it truly as relevant as we say it is?  

.02 Ethnic Churches: Some churches in different ethnic communities were established to help other cultures new to America connect to Christ.  With language and culture being the issue this was a huge need.  Once again great concept, however, are we creating a further racial divide by focusing just on one nationality per church?  

.03 Traditional Churches: By allowing older traditions to continue the possibility is that we could be  dating our churches in such a way that younger generations can't connect. (example: older songs, dress code & old english style Bibles)

If you can't tell what I'm getting at yet this should sum it up for you.  If all we can do is worship to a certain style of Christianity are we not worshipping a style rather than our Lord?  That's hard to differentiate because styles are necessary.  However, I do think its worth asking!  Are we being who God has called us to be or who we want to be?

What do you think?

Feedback appreciated!

Over the past couple of weeks I've been asking a tough question lately. Does the church really know how to relate to those outside the church anymore. I've come to the conclusion that I don't believe most churches connect to those outside our faith. In watching the elections I saw many of the commands of Jesus being talked about by government officials. Just as an example: How about the church's responsibility to take care of the widow and orphaned. I realize that as a denomination we have a few orphanages and a home for the widows. However, not every widow can move to Tennessee to a home for widows. Also, our orphanages aren't reaching our local areas for the most part. My point is this. The church has allowed their responsibility to be passed off to the government. Or even more sad, maybe the government has recognized its need to step in because the church hasn't been doing their job. No wonder why so many government officials want separation between church and state. I say that to say this. What are some other commands Christ has given us that we are missing and how can position ourselves to start taking those God given responsibilities back?

How I got to hang out with some fire fighters!!!

For the past week I've been at two different youth conferences. Both conferences were incredible events and I absolutely loved each event. Sadly after such an event is a travel day that usually takes most of your day. Such was my day on Thursday.

Thursday morning I woke up early and started my trip back to Louisiana from South Carolina (754 miles). The trip was a long trip filled with many stops due to Emily needing to stretch since she's prego. At about 7:15 pm Em and I stopped roughly 30 minutes from our house to fill up the suv. This is where things get interesting...

As we arrived at the gas station Em and I thought we'd grab a snack from inside. So at this point I began to set the gas to pump while I was inside shopping. Most of us do this. Nothing out of the ordinary. Except somehow the gas release got stuck and after the gas tank was full the pump never shut off. Gas was pouring all over the place. There was a huge puddle of gas under my car and I had to run through it to shut off the pump. (Where are those emergency shut off buttons when you need one?)

At this point the gas station attendant saw what was happening and began to call the fire department. 5 minutes later 2 fire trucks, 2 volunteer trucks and an ambulance was in the gas station parking lot. Do you know how awkward I felt? And to make things worse my wife, the one who promised me she would be my support over 5 years ago on our wedding day, was laughing her head off taking pictures with her camera phone to send to her parents.

Below is one of those pictures. Hope you enjoy!

Kids say the cutest things...

Kids say the cutest things:

This weekend talking with family Emily and I discovered that our 4 year old nephew said something really cute.  While playing he put a pot on his head and called himself a pot-head, lol.  Of course he doesn't have any idea what that means to us as adults but children are so cute when they say such innocent things.  

The thought occurred to me that you all probably have some pretty cute stories as well.  I'm interested in hearing them.  Let em rip!  

Brian

Confusion...

Have you ever had those times in life when you were confused?  I've recently had a moment like that.  I didn't know what I should do.  I've learned that if you wait long enough and pray hard enough God provides you with the best option yet.  Life has a way of just throwing things at you that you could never come to expect.  But God always has an answer.  The question is are we listening?  

Late Night

Last night was a late night for the Downing family.  About 1:15 this morning our house alarm went off.  I had the decision of having to have the police come or not.  That's a tough decisions.  The alarm company said that when it gets cold the window sensors tend to set off false alarms.  I decided to not have them send the police.  Fortunately I was still awake when the alarm sounded.  I knew what zone in our house was tripped and could tell that more than likely no one was trying to break in. Needless to say that feeling is hard to let go of.  I didn't go to sleep until after 3:30 this morning.  I am so tired right now.  I think I'm going to take me an afternoon siesta.  

a weekend summary

This weekend was a great weekend.  It all started Friday.  Can you believe that? Friday night Em and I went to the Louisiana State Fair.  As you can imagine there were a lot of weird things at the fair.  The one that caught my attention the most were 4 high school boys who were strutting their stuff.  The only problem is that its hard to look "hot" when all 4 friends are carrying stuffed animals around the fair with no women along side of them.  I'm sure they thought they looked cool knocking milk bottles over with a baseball, making a basket or tossing a pingpong in a fish bowl.  I wonder if they thought about what it looked like afterwards?  Actually I know the answer to that question but I wonder how long it took them to figure out.  However a highlight came out of the state fair.  Fried snickers bars are really good.  If you have the chance to try one do it!  

Saturday morning I woke up and my wife and I went to Robert Church of God for their fall festival.  It was so cool to see around 50 volunteers helping face paint, entertain, ride horses, give hay rides, watch inflatables and serve food.  All of this was free too!  What a caring church!  I think my favorite part was watching one of the volunteers accidentally lift up a flap to one of the inflatables and let go of it only for that flap to fling back and knock this little kid down.  The kid laughed so hard.  You could tell the kid wanted the worker to do it again.  He just stood there and waited.  Very cute and funny.

Later that evening we had a couple of students from a local church in Baton Rouge come over.  We watched some football and played nintendo wii.  They are some cool peeps!

Sunday I drove over 2 hours to Lake Charles Louisiana to preach at a youth service.  I spoke on "A shot at love" playing off of mtv's television hit "a shot at love".  Talking about the need to understand what true love really looked like I gave them examples of what love "isn't".

Love isn't about...

I ntentions

S elf

N atural Feelings

T rends

Through the years I've seen and come up with a few illustrations to prove my points.  One of my illustrations was to pull out some gaff tape.  Gaff tape has more stick than duck tape.  I showed the students how every time they give themselves to another person in a way that God did not intend that they lose what God intended for them to have with their spouse.  So I found the hairiest guy and busted out the tape and stuck it on his arm.  Yanked it off and stuck it on again.  After a little while of doing this the pain wasn't as bad because it lost its stickiness.  Then I showed the tape to the students and they saw all the hair on the tape.  I took the time to share with them how if I were to take that tape and stick it on someone else that they would also have to live up to the person who had already visited that tape before them.  The point was received very well!  After that I also took two bottles of water and asked one of the students which one she would rather drink from.  She chose one bottle.  I then opened that one and my wife and I drank out of it.  I asked her the question again and this time she chose the other bottle of water.  I asked her why?  She got it quickly and so did the students.  The other bottle was pure and didn't have any germs on it.  I explained that's how marriages work.  You want the pure thing because you know where it came from and you know its safe.  

Overall we had a great weekend.  I'm a little tired now but I loved every moment of it.  Probably the highlight of the entire weekend was feeling my baby girl kick my hand though. That is a special feeling!  Lots of fun!!!

Thinking versus Doing

Recently I've been reading a book that I highly recommend.  The book is called "Wild Goose Chase" by Mark Batterson.  Yesterday I read a section that totally drilled me.  Mark talked about how many times we are lazy in our actions.  We pray and ask God to help us but never doing anything ourselves.  He says that "signs follow faith".  To many times I have found myself thinking of great ideas but never acting on them.  Mark reminded me that God's Word tells us that God isn't going to say... well said my good and faithful servant or well thought my good and faithful servant.  God is going to one day say..."Well DONE my good and faithful servant".  

To many times I find myself waiting on God to move when He is really waiting on me to move.  Don't get me wrong there are times when we need to wait on God but I think if we're honest with ourselves most of the time that is just an excuse.  

Mark also mentions that when we begin to make excuses like this we are irresponsibly responsible.  We are being irresponsible with the responsibility God has given us.  We should rather be responsibly irresponsible.  Meaning that we start to put God's passions in front of our own and by faith step out.  I.E.  Noah left his job to build an ark.  David left his sheep to fight Goliath.  Moses left his comfortable home to lead a complaining group of people.  

I've been challenged to look for areas of my life that I just need to step out and act.  What are some areas you need to step out and act on?

Super Funny!

Today I was driving to Office Depot when I saw something strange in the middle of the 6 lane road.  It was a break pad & rotor.  As you know you have to have those two item on your car to stop the car.  I didn't make it to much further past the break pad and rotor before I had to turn but I did notice that traffic ahead of me was stopped and not moving.  I sure hope those folks had insurance, lol.  

I hate to laugh at someone else expense but how bad must someone's brakes sound before they just fall off?  

Friendship

Friendship is the most amazing thing.  How great is it that you can call someone who isn't related to you and know that they care for you and your needs.  It blows me away to think about how much I depend on my friends.  I've even come to appreciate the friends I only speak to a couple of times a year.  I used to be much closer to them but they helped make me who I am today.  Its great to revisit those friendships.  Looking back on the past can also be pretty humorous.  

Just today I spoke with one of those friends.  I still consider him my best friend simply because he and I connect so close and trust each other's input.  He's truly one of those friends who wants what is best for me and that is what I appreciate about him.  This morning I received a text from him that something was wrong.  He didn't go into details but asked me to pray.  Immediately I dropped what I was doing and began praying for him.  

I'm glad I have friends I can depend on and friends that can depend on me.  Very cool!

A fun weekend

So this weekend I had a great time with my family.  Here's some of the highlights.

.01 I learned that I hate the gps on my cell phone.  Nice feature that doesn't work at all!  Instead of taking me to a golf course it took me to a cow pasture and instead of taking me to a corn maze it took me to a oil refinery. 

.02  I soaked my brother-in -law by taping the spray hose at the sink and then asking him to help do the dishes.  Good stuff right there.  

.03 I almost fell into a wall while playing raquetball.  Basically tripped over my own two feet.  Wife had a good laugh at that.  :-)  

.04 I played golf. 

.05  We bought 2 pumpkins and carved fall leaves and a smiley face on them.  It looks great on our fire place.  

Precious Memories!  

Pranks...

This weekend my brother-in-law and his girl friend are coming over.  I love when he comes and visits.  I get to act like I am much younger than I am.  One of those bonding moments that my wife's brother and I typically have is when we prank each other.  It has never really escalated to anything major but we love the bragging rights.  Typically I wait until the last night to get him so he doesn't have a chance to get me back until the next time we see him.  A couple examples of this might be...

.01 short sheeting his bed- This is when you take the bottom of the sheets and tuck them at the head of the bed.  You then pull the top of the sheets out and fold them in half towards the head of the bed again.  This causes the persons body to be sandwiched between 1 sheet.  Its actually pretty funny to watch them push and pull against themselves at the same time.

.02 dropping water from above- This was when he and his girl friend were sitting below the wooden deck I was standing on.  It came to my attention that I could pour water down on them.  With the help of Em's mom we both soaked them.  This ended in a water balloon fight at which I also soaked him good.  

These are just a few examples.  Here's where you come in.  Do you have any suggestions for good pranks I could pull on my brother-in-law?  

Can I have a do over?

Have you ever had one of those days where you wished you could just have it back to do over?  That's where I'm at (not a plug for the allstate commercial).  I think at the very nature of trying to be sincere that sometimes we lose focus.  Is that possible?  Can we lose focus trying to be sincere?  I think the answer is yes.  

Lets just think about it this way.  We're close to the election of a new president.  Both parties are very sincere about their candidates but some are sincerely wrong.  Sincerity is not a license to act or speak without consequences.  In fact sometimes it can be even more painful.  

Sincerity is an awesome tool when used with purpose, truth and compassion.  Any thoughts?

leadership snares

Sometimes in life there are moments when you think you've been doing good and all of a sudden BAM.  Everything you did is turned on you and taken out of context.  You hardly have the time to express your genuine thoughts/opinions.  Your response makes a world of difference as a leader!  

Yard Sales...ugh

Yesterday my wife and I woke up earlier than we should have to go out and search the vast treasures of the mysterious yard sales, or in some cases dirty garage sales.  We went through one neighborhood all day long (it was a neighborhood yard sale).  For real, it was the largest neighborhood I've ever been through.  We spent 3 hours driving up and down streets never stopping at one house for more than 3 minutes.  

Anyhow, we decided it was over when my overly eager wife said one more street.  We turned down Avalon Circle and sure enough there were two houses having a yard sale.  To Em's surprise they had some baby stuff.  The entire purpose for this trip was to find some clean used items for our new baby girl.  Once we arrived at this one house Em found a glider chair and a changing table.  It was awfully close to the one we registered with at Target.  Upon a closer look it was a Bassett.  That's a pretty good name brand for those of you who don't know furniture name brands.  To top it off there was a matching crib, ottoman and night stand.  

We proceeded to ask how much it was when she told us..."$250 but I just sold this a few minutes earlier... well sorta".  My wife began to ask her what she meant by that.  The lady said she had a deposit from a lady but she didn't have the money for it.  She said she didn't know if she would really be able to pay for it or not and was a little worried.  The desperate soon to be parents we were decided that it was worth bargaining for.  We told her we would pay today if she would sell it.  After speaking to her husband she agreed and off we were with a great deal.   

While I'm thrilled we have an incredible deal I know this will also work to my demise.  You see, now that my wife has found this treasure she has hope for all other neighborhood yard sale events.  My weekends may never be the same!  Pray for me folks!  Pray hard!

Fantasy COG

Today I was thinking about our upcoming ministers meeting when the thought hit me.  Voting for the youth board and state council is not that different from fantasy football.  How cool would it be if we had a score during voting that showed who voted the best.  We could call it Fantasy COG.  Winner gets a free COG logo and pictures with the COG Secretaries.  WOW, how cool would that be?

Women's Hospital Visit

Yesterday Emily and I had a walk through, along with 11 other expecting mothers and their husbands, to get familiar with the hospital our baby girl will be delivered in.  This was a good concept except there were two problems.  We never received a map and secondly, they took us down staff halls and staff elevators to keep this large group out of the way of patience family members.  So basically we walked through parts of the hospital that were restricted areas and will have to guess our way through once our wives/girlfriends go into labor.  Luckily the walk through was a free service otherwise I would have asked for my money back!

Registering for a baby shower is fun!

Ok, so yeste​rday Em and I regis​tered​ for our baby girl.  This is just in case someone throws us a baby shower or someone just wants to buy something for our baby.  We walke​d aroun​d targe​t with this cool littl​e scann​er and scann​ed items​ we want peopl​e to buy for us "the baby"​.​  After a short while I began to feel bored. During that time I began to think who would buy us this stuff. ​ I began to question how many peopl​e reall​y pay atten​tion to this stuff​.​ For example do people just buy the cheapest things they can find or do they really put energy behind baby shower gifts?  My theory is that most people just look for a $ amount and go for that item(s).  So to test out my theor​y I began​ scann​ing some other​ items​.​ Those​ items​ inclu​ded the large​st bottl​e of tylen​ol I could​ find,​ one 20 pack of ear plugs​,​ 6 indiv​idual​ 20 oz mount​ain dews,​ 4 snick​ers,​ 2 twix,​ and 1 packa​ge of m&​m'​s.​ I figur​ed if someo​ne bough​t it for me, I mean the baby, it would​ certa​inly be used for those​ late night​s or early​ morni​ngs.​ Oh and if someo​ne does find thems​elves​ searc​hing targe​t for Brian​ & Emily​'​s Baby there​ is a littl​e secre​t note.​ I chall​enged​ them to find waldo​ too, lol.  

The Day in rewind: Day 2

Ok, so today I woke up to eat a bowl of cerial and start chopping down the largest tree in the neighborhood. The reason for this is because of Hurricane Gustav. It blew my neighbors tree in my yard and he is only responsible for cleaning up the mess in his yard and not mine. Which leaves me with this gigantic task of cutting down a tree.

My neighbor was nice enough to cut down large branches so he could get to the base on his property. However this still left me with a bunch of very long branches to cut into smaller pieces. I've been doing all of this cutting with a hand saw up until this weekend. I borrowed a chain saw from a youth pastor here in town. Its been a much faster process than the past 3 weeks without it.

So here I am completely exhausted and done for the day. I still have a bunch more but I need to get the chain saw sharpened. Tomorrow I will probably spend most of the day trying to cut up the 5 foot tall base along with a few other thick/long limbs. AHHHHHHH. If I had any money I'd hire someone to do this for me... but I don't.

Day in rewind.

So today I woke up tired because I worked hard on cutting down a tree from hurricane Gustav. After waking up I went for a walk with my wife.  She's pregnant and likes to walk now.  After our walk I got ready and went to the office for 30 minute and left for starbucks for a meeting.  I made it back to the office just in time to stall for 15 minutes till time to leave for lunch.  At home during lunch I took a nap.  Ahhh, that felt so good!  Now I'm back in my office day dreaming about watching "The Office" tonight.  So far that's my day in rewind.  

Today

Today I decided it was time to develop my blog a bit.  So for the next little while I'm going to be working on designing a better blog page.  

Work

Have you ever found yourself so busy that you just don't feel like you can finish any one project?  That's where I'm at.  Better get back to work.