I don’t do well with pain. I thank God that I am not a woman, if I whimper as much as I do with a sprained ankle I would be asking for an epidermal as soon as I found out that I was pregnant! All because I couldn’t deal with the pain. So to all the women out there who have birthed a child, you are way tougher than me! And thanks to my Mom for pushing all 10+ lbs of me out!

Anyway, as you can see and read I hurt my ankle yesterday playing some pick-up Ultimate Frisbee with Crusade people here in Ft. Collins. I don’t even have a good story with it, I just turned it on an uneven spot of the field. So all day I sat with ice on it and it elevated while I beat Halo 2 and I did have some great time with Jesus before I saved the world from the evil aliens! You can’t say I didn’t get anything accomplished today! I have to give a HUGE SHOUT OUT to some of my XTRACK men that have been my nurses today! Thanks guys! You rock! I’m grateful! Well, I pray you have a blessed weekend! My good friend Jeremy Johnston just called, I have to go!

I know you have been riveted by my new series of cultural insights about the Czech Republic from the book, I just finished, entitled Pink Tanks and Velvet Hangovers: An American in Prague. To read the last couple entries related to this series click here and here. While I was on STINT in Prague I notice I didn’t see a lot of handicapped people in Prague. It got me wondering, “Surely they have handicap people here too, but where are they.” Douglas Lytle hits on this briefly in the book:

The elderly and handicapped are automatically given seats on the trams. As we rattled along, Nikola said that the trams are easier than the underground subway, which has no elevators and more steps. The previous government [the communists] neglected to do much for the needs of the handicapped. “They said handicapped people only existed in capitalist countries!” Nikola said.

Wow, I still don’t know what to think about that quote from this woman named Nikola, but I obviously still saw the truths of this when I spent time over there. It makes me wonder about our country’s values compared to the Czech values. Hmmm, well, I need to get to some homework for training. Thanks for stopping by!

Growing up I wanted to be an artist – more specifically a cartoonist. That evolved into being a filmmaker – more specifically a director and writer. BUT things changed when I went to highschool and felt the need to be the “golden boy” coach’s son and that resulted in me shying away from the artistic side of me a lot. Since I’ve become a Christian I’ve been itching my way back into the creative side of me, especially since I see that it is a God-given impulse and it reflects my Creator God. So here is a great quote about art from the great thinker Dr. Francis Schaeffer:

Art is a reflection of God’s creativity, an evidence that we are made in the image of God.

We have been talking about transitions, values, living incarnationally, and a ton of great things that are relevant for the 100 of us Crusade missionaries that will be spread over the globe to 20 some countries. BUT as I’ve been sitting in these meeting and training times I couldn’t help but think, “The whole American Church needs this training!” We need to be trained to live missionally (or incarnational) where ever God has placed us. Ed Stetzer (who is a DUDE!) spoke recently at the SBC Conference about this very thing. I hope this short clip challenges you and your church to live missionally! I hope to begin posting some of the relevant stuff we are learning here!

(HT – Steve McCoy)

Today, I’ve been surfing the internet trying to find a way to find Czech people in Fort Collins, CO. One of the things within our XTRACK International Training we will engage in is a language learning week and also a Cultural Engagement Experience (formally known as Cultural Engagement Project, but experience sounds more post-modern!) that are contingent on finding someone from the country we are going to. This is tough when you are going to a country of a little under 11 million people, but WE are trying. (Please pray that God would provide someone!) In the midst of all my surfing I came across an article in Denver Post entitled Blank Czechs? and it offered some great insights into the Czech persona. Click here for the whole article, but below are some sections I found intriguing.

Upon arriving in Prague last September, I was initially taken aback to find the Czechs such a glum lot. On the trams or trains they would rarely speak, and they all seemed to find their shoes fascinating. Sometimes under the great silent pressure not to stand out, I often pretended to find their shoes fascinating, too.

Even our twentysomething son, fixated on any number of things besides other’s shoes, noticed the gloom. After visiting us here, he e-mailed a few weeks later asking how things were “in the land of no smiles and dreamy beer.”

So when I now look around at the glum faces on the trams and the trains now, I see things a bit differently. True, the Czechs can be a crusty bunch, but there is much worth discovering under the crust. Behind those blank, shoe-studying eyes is a patient but potent resolve as well as a stoic appraisal of life’s joys and hardships. This seemingly sullen reticence is something beyond mere temperament; perhaps it is the coy mask of false acquiescence they learned to wear in the face of decades of often brutal oppression.

I find the author’s, Mark Moe, insights pretty accurate and I learned some interesting things from the article. Czech the whole article out if these sections got you thinking and as always be a revolution today!

Here is our first entry from Pink Tanks and Velvet Hangovers: An American in Prague, by Douglas Lytle. It comes from page 7, in the chapter entitled, “A Train to Bohemia.”

These facts brought be closer to an understanding of just who the Czechs and Slovaks were. An extraordinarily old guidebook cheerfully told me, without much elaboration: “The Czechs, in fact, were long ago nicknamed ‘the Yankees of Europe.’ The sober, diligent rough-hewn Czech feels more at home in a mine, mill or factory. Like a New Englander or Scotsman, he loves to build machinery, and his homeland, Bohemia-Moravia, is one of the world’s most highly industrialized areas.” Judging by this screed, I would be meeting a lot of happy mechanics who would take me into the basement after dinner to show me their favorite tools and drills. I also wasn’t so sure how good I would be at discussing differing theories of irrigations.

I can’t say how accurate that guidebook was for Lytle, because I haven’t talked much about drills or irrigation with many Czechs, but I thought it was a good lead off entry! Stay tuned for more interesting insights from this book about the people and country I love!

What the heck, let’s talk some more about the Gospel. One of the cool things we are doing with XTRACK is studying the book of Galatians, to help/guide us through our study we are using Tim Keller’s Bible study on Galatians and it rocks! Here is a short segment from the introduction about the Gospel that floored me!

Belief in the gospel is not just the way to enter the Kingdom of God; it is the way to address every obstacle and grow in every aspect. The gospel is not just the “ABCs” but the “A-to-Z” of the Christian life. The gospel is the way that anything is renewed and transformed by Christ – whether a heart, a relationship, a church, or a community. All of our problems come from a lack of orientation to the gospel. Put positively, the gospel transforms our hearts, our thinking and our approach to absolutely everything.

It seems as if lately God is continuing to drill something into this thick skull of mine, and what at times can be a hard heart too! “What is that?” you ask. Well, the Gospel. Yes, the Gospel! It would seem that my understanding/believing/living of the Gospel has been incomplete or insufficient to the truth of Scripture! God has been hitting me with this over the last year and a half from a variety of angles! My director at the AIA Training Center, sermon after sermon I listen too, books I’m reading, blogs I stumble across, one of the first talks here at XTRACK (Crusade’s International training in Ft. Collins, CO), and many, many other angles! God, it would seem, is trying to get something across to me. So as I sit at a Panera Bread, in Ft. Collins, and get some time with God, surfing the net, doing a prayer letter and so fourth He HIT ME AGAIN! This time through a usual source – Mark Driscoll. This time it was on the Acts 29 Church Planting Network’s site.

Here is the link for the actual post, but you can read it below. I pray that God would use these words to shake you and me to the core! Because it would seem I’m chasing after religion far, far too much!

Religion says, if I obey, God will love me. Gospel says, because God loves me, I can obey.

Religion has good people & bad people. Gospel has only repentant and unrepentant people.

Religion values a birth family. Gospel values a new birth.

Religion depends on what I do. Gospel depends on what Jesus has done.

Religion claims that sanctification justifies me. Gospel claims that justification enables sanctification.

Religion has the goal to get from God. Gospel has the goal to get God.

Religion sees hardships as punishment for sin. Gospel sees hardship as sanctified affliction.

Religion is about me. Gospel is about Jesus.

Religion believes appearing as a good person is the key. Gospel believes that being honest is the key.
Religion has an uncertainty of standing before God. Gospel has certainty based upon Jesus’ work.

Religion sees Jesus as the means. Gospel sees Jesus as the end.

Religion ends in pride or despair. Gospel ends in humble joy.