…that will always put you in a good mood.  I tend to be quite cynical in such situations, but I was trying to keep positive and managed to strike up a conversation with the lady next to me.  We had an enjoyable chat, and the time passed quickly.  Anyway…

As I was leaving the DMV this morning I was quickly walking through Georgetown to get to the  Barnes & Noble.  Suddenly it occurred to me that I hadn’t noticed the Christmas decorations lining the streets.  (Did I mention that I love Christmas?)

I was so focused on getting where I needed to go, even though I wasn’t on a deadline, that I couldn’t enjoy the good things around me.  Sometimes we don’t even need to take time to stop and smell the roses, we just need to take the mental space to enjoy the good things God has placed around us.

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Then I realized, Jesus wasn’t balanced.  Jesus was on a radical mission, living as a wandering teacher and prophet who was crucified because he upset the religious establishment.

When we think about serving God and serving others, we like to look at the times that Jesus stepped back from serving to pray or to spend time with his closest friends.  He did this in spite of the fact that there were unmet needs among people around Him.

But there are two things that make this different than our situations.

First, Jesus stopped serving to pray and to fellowship with and teach the people closest to him. NOT TO WATCH TV!

Second, Jesus practiced balance in a radical context.  As I said before, He was on a radical mission.  He was out to redeem the world and restore the broken relationship between God and creation.  He consistently lived that out.  He had no permanent home and spent his life serving others.

We want to practice balance in a life of incredible comfort and ease.  We want to go to work and come home to our comfortable and luxurious surroundings and not be bothered.  (Yes, my small, old apartment is luxurious by most of the world’s standards.)  We want to spend our weekends lounging around and caring for our own “needs.”  And then we’ll throw in a little service.  If we’re asked to do more we’ll say, I’m already serving, and…

It’s a balance.

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We’ve gotten much, much bigger as a church since we implemented that coaching system, and our small groups strategy has changed radically.  Heather Zempel, our Discipleship Pastor, decided that it was time to rethink how we do small group coaching, so she commenced “Operation KABOOM!”  In other words, we’re blowing up the old coaching model and building a new one from the ground up.

I’m excited to be able to be a part of strategizing our new coaching system.  We had our first big team meeting tonight, and it was very insightful to hear from some different folks on coaching/mentoring/leading from a number of different approaches, from the military to sports coaches to parenting, just to name a few.  We also looked at some biblical examples of discipleship.

My plan is to discuss some of the topics we covered here in the coming days.

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UPDATE: As Ian Kitterman pointed out below, the Mall is actually flanked by Constitution Ave and Independence Ave, so technically only the interior of the mall is slanted.

Here’s the map so you can see what I’m talking about. If you line most east-west streets in DC up with the edge of the map, they’re aligned nearly perfectly. If you do that with Jefferson Dr & Madison Dr, that is not the case. And yes, it’s true on the satellite version of the map as well, so it’s not just a result of poor map-making.

View Larger Map

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We’re starting at 138,937 followers. A few hundred people already follow @ObamaNews each day, so there’s a few bucks already.  Can you put me in the poorhouse?

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You will never maximize your potential in any area without coaching.  It is impossible. You may be good. You may even be better than everyone else.  But without outside input you will never be as good as you could be.

Even the best athletes have coaches.  Tiger Woods has a coach.  There’s probably no one better at golf than Tiger, but he still needs someone to give him a third person perspective on his game, to evaluate him.

And you know what, chances are that you are not the wisest, smartest, or most experienced person in life or in your field of work.

How do you find mentors?  I’ve got a trick to doing it, so stay tuned for part two.

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Keep a gratitude journal this week. Find something everyday to be grateful for. It’s a spiritual discipline. Psalm 103:2 says, “Praise the Lord and forget not all his benefits.”

In the words of the hymn:
Count your blessings. Name them one by one. Count your many blessings. See what God has done.

Your focus will determine your reality!

I’ve decided to start keeping a gratitude journal on Twitter using the hashtag #gratitude.  After searching, it looks like some others have already put the hashtag it to good use, and you should join in too!

I’m aiming for three things a day.  I feel like that will force me to think about it more than just one thing would.  Today I’m grateful for free museums with places to sit and read, for the wonderful night I had last night, and for my day off.

What are you grateful for?

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We live in a culture of ever increasing noise.  The amount of information that is available for us to consume and the entertainment options, products, and services clamoring for our attention are expanding exponentially.

So I ask you again, what are you saying that doesn’t need to be said?  What are you writing that doesn’t need to be written?  What has already been said better by someone else?  What don’t people need to know?  What questions don’t need to be asked or conversations don’t need to be had?

Something that I’ve been thinking about recently is just how much is out there to read, and how some of what I write may be worthless.  If I write an inane blog post and 50 people spend three minutes reading it, I’ve just wasted two and half hours of other people’s time.

Perhaps it would benefit all of us to consider what benefit is being derived from what we write before we publish it for the world to read.

While I think I have presented a compelling case without bringing faith into the discussion, those of us who are followers of Jesus should consider His words in the book of Matthew, “But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.” Or as the King James Version translates it, “But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment (emphasis mine).”

I haven’t done any real study of this passage, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt, but while Jesus seems to be talking about good and evil thoughts and words in the preceeding verses, the words “careless” and “idle” are translations of the greek word “argos” which implies laziness, carelessness, idleness, and having no return and is a negation of the word “ergon,”¹ which means business, employment, enterprise, undertaking, etc.

In other words, Jesus seems to be saying that we will be held to account for the things that we say without sufficient thought as to their value or whether or not they need to be said.

I should end by saying that I do recognize the irony of writing about the idea that one should be careful what one writes.

1. Here “a” is a negator. (I.e. an a-theist is one who is not a theist [believer in God].) Definitions taken from StudyLight.org’s interliear Bible and An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon (founded upon the seventh edition of Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon).

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(See here if you have no idea what I’m talking about.)

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I do my own taxes.  I might be willing to pay someone to do them or even pay more taxes if it meant less paperwork, but having someone do my taxes doesn’t really help.  I’ve still got to get together all of the paperwork.  All they do is the math.  I can do the math.  That’s no a big deal.  It’s the paperwork that I hate.

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