Now I don’t know what it means to be a father, I hope to some day, but in the past few years I’ve wrestled with being a man and what that means. The more and more I think about being a man I see how my own father has shaped me and that often paralyzes me with fear that someday I might misshape my son! All of us men have had a dad! I mean we couldn’t be here without one, but all of our fathers have had positive and negative effects on you and I as men (and this goes for women too, but I’m specifically referencing men). This morning I read a great blog entry from Anthony Bradley’s blog over at THE RESURGENCE and it challenged me to think about my dad and the men I seek to minister to in the college arena.

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Happy Sunday night! So I have to apologize to you my faithful reader (if I have any left!) after my lack of posts. I am not doing a very good job in the blog world right now! I hope you will forgive me for my lack of posts. I am trying to get used to my daily schedule for the year, now that school has begun! Hopefully things will begin to level off for me now.

I did think it would be fun to post my answers to a question I recently answered for a missions board application for a church back in my hometown area. The question that was posed was, “Why should we support you?” I love when people ask me this question and it was fun to actually get a chance to type it up and put it to words. Please know that this isn’t a ploy to get more support, but hopefully it allows you to see my passion and my heart for getting back to Czech and doing ministry there as soon as God wills! So here is a little vision for you this night! Have a blessed one and be a revolution!
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Yesterday as we drove to Antigua to do ministry and also help out the Wrestling Federation, by promoting the sport, I got a chance to read some more about the history and cultural background of Guatemala City and the country as large. A couple of things I’ve noticed about driving around the city of Guatemala is the extreme divisions between class and the amount of nasty pollution. With that in mind I was intrigued by the following quote from my tourist book, The Rough Guide to Guatemala,

The divisions that cleave Guatemalan society are at their most acute in the capital’s crumbling streets. While the wealthy elite sip coffee in air-conditioned shopping malls and plan their next visit to Miami, swathes of the city have been left to disintegrate into a threatening tangle of fume-choked streets, largely devoid of any kind of life after dark. A small army of street children lives rough, and gang violence is growing. The disparities of life in the city are glaring extreme, as glass skyscrapers tower over the sprawling shanty towns, and shoeless widows peddle cigarettes and chewing gum to designer-clad night clubbers.

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As I sit down to type this blog entry I’m in route to Dallas, TX for a few days of connecting with friends, doing some support raising, trying to enjoy a little time off and also finishing up some last minute work for the Athletes in Action Wrestling Tour to Guatemala that I am the “AIA Staff Discipleship Coordinator” (I laugh about that because it would seem my title or job description is ever evolving into something that seems more elaborate and leaves me wondering what I am really doing. But that is cool.). So as I sit here staring at the screen of my Mac PowerBook and occasionally looking out the window at the magnificent clouds that my Jesus spoke into existence I’m wading through several articles and a ton of scripture references for this prep work I am doing.
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Well, in the wake of a dismal showing from my team, the Czech Republic, in the World Cup I have been reading some articles about the future of Czech soccer and I came across a very cool quote from the Czech head man, Karel Brückner. This quote of course is in light of the Czech’s performance, or lack of performance, from the Ghana and Italy games.

“Soccer is about finding extraordinary solutions in critical situations, unfortunately, we failed in critical times.”

The Czech national team did fail in those critical situations, but as I read this quote I couldn’t help but think about us, as Christians. We are living in a unique time in history and I asked myself (and now you), “Will we step up and find extraordinary solutions in critical situations or will our impact on our culture and our world look like the Czech impact on the 2006 World Cup?”
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As I am away from Prague I make it a point to read the PRAGUE POST, the English newspaper of Prague, often to keep up with Czech happenings and as I was czeching it out today I found an interesting article, entitled Searching for Saviors. Now I was more than a little intrigued to see the title, but I was more than intrigued as I read it.

The article, sadly, isn’t about Czech seeking the Savior, in the sense I pray and long for the Czechs seeking the Savior, but it is referring to Czechs that want to see the historical churches, that are left empty across the whole country, saved. You know Christianity is an after thought when this is happening to old church buildings:
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Well, once again Mark Driscoll, over at TheResurgence, has cranked out another great blog post. This time it is about how we can’t get away from the Substitutionary Atonement of Jesus on the cross. I find it sad, and interesting, that people are turning from this truth and doctrine that is at the bedrock of Christianity. So check out the POST and pass the link on to others! Here is a paragraph that I really enjoyed!

Nearly 2,000 years ago a poor, homeless, single man in his early thirties was executed by crucifixion like many other common criminals. He never wrote a book, never traveled more than 200 miles from his home, never held a political office, never married or had children, and never ran a company. His name is Jesus Christ and history is divided into the periods before and after his life. Time magazine named him “Man of the Millennium,” and more songs have been sung to, books written about, and artwork painted of him than anyone who has ever lived. Moreover, a few billion people alive today worship Him as their only God and deeply love Him unlike anyone who has ever lived.

Amen!