Finally heading back to West Virginia after vacationing in sunny Florida for a little over a week. We’ll hit the ground running by moving stuff into the new house and then closing on Friday. Hopefully I’ll be back blogging again early next week.

My family is enjoying some much appreciated, if not much needed rest and relaxation on vacation down in sunny Florida. But just when we thought we could relax on baby names, a stupid vampire movie had to come out and ruin everything. Last night at the dinner table my brother broke the bad news to me that “Cullen” has now become one of the most popular boy names due to it being the Vampire surname of one of the toothy protagonists.

So with that name most likely gone (I just don’t want “Cullen” to be among a zillion other “Cullen’s”), it’s back to the drawing board. This is unfamiliar territory for Amy and I, since we had Connar picked out before we were even engaged. And let’s just say there’s not been quite the consensus on names this go around.

Well I guess the age old proverb is proved true, “Once you get a great boy name picked out, you always need to first check the box office to see if it will become too popular.” I wonder why “Frodo” never took off with the Lord of the Rings trilogy?

“No porn for you….,” says Steve Jobs, well in so many words. He doesn’t want porn to be available on his mobile devices, and is willing to hold his ground against many critics. This might not be enough for you to shell out the money for an apple product, but it certainly makes you think about it. While pornography is an offense to a holy God, it is also a sin against men, women, and children. I don’t know if Jobs is a Christian or not, but if he isn’t, 3 out of 4 isn’t too bad, eh? Another example of how humanity might be Totally Depraved (inability to ultimately please God and choose Jesus), but not Utterly Depraved (as bad as we could possibly be), and so it is still able to do numerous socially “good” actions. And we should be thankful for this truth, especially for people in powerful positions.

There was a commercial-though I can’t remember who it was for-that featured a man with an opportunity to receive a “collect” call from Bob Gottababieetzaboi. The man promptly did not accept that call and passed the info on to his wife. He said, “It was Bob, he had a baby, and its a boy.” After the results of the ultra-sound yesterday, consider me Geoff Gottababieetzaboi.

One of the great lines from any movie, especially from a movie that wasn’t THAT good, is The Rock‘s “You are on a need-to-know basis and you don’t need to know.” That’s been a theme for the last year of our lives when we didn’t know how long we would be at our last church, where we’d be going, if we’d be involved in church planting, how we could get Amy covered for insurance with her “pre-existing” pregnancy condition, etc….I kept asking God for answers but He would regularly, though inaudibly, reply with these words.

So we unwillingly learned to live with the uncertainty of not knowing things we didn’t “need-to-know” (though I of course differed with the Lord on this matter!). Today, we have a chance to be invited into a bit of knowledge: finding out whether that “baby in mama’s belly” (as we described him/her to Connar to get him used to someone else entering and re-arranging his universe as he knows it) is a boy or a girl.

We’ve just had so much uncertainty in the last year, and lived a life of complete surprises, that when God does offer a glimpse into what the future may hold, we’re going to jump on it like a 4th quarter fumble. Today we’re thankful God will be letting us in on this one, and tomorrow we’ll be back to uncertainty!

The other day I was randomly looking at foxnews.com and CNN.com (though no one can be 100% “fair & balanced,” this seems a good way to try to stay as balanced as possible!), and came across some thoughts on sexuality and marriage from former sex symbol (which means finding an appropriate image to put on a blog was very difficult) Raquel Welch.

Because all people are made in the image of God and still retain that image-albeit tarnished, like the statue of liberty-non-believers can display real truth. Such, I think, is the case here as Welch examines the negative effects of the sexual revolution and birth control for both men and women, and the overall institution of marriage. Despite the attacks on marriage from many today, Welch truly upholds this institution. Now she may not admit it is necessarily God-ordained, but she does go pretty far in the right direction, describing it as the central aspect of a healthy society. Perhaps some of these same thoughts might be more spelled out in her destined-to-be-a-classic book Raquel: Beyond the Cleavage.

Last night Ellen the Degenerate responded to American Idol’s duet “Have you ever really loved a women?” by saying “Yes, I have.” So I guess that made this little tid-bit a bit more refreshing. Anyhow, here’s an excerpt.

It remains this way. These days, nobody seems able to “keep it in their pants” or honor a commitment! Raising the question: Is marriage still a viable option? I’m ashamed to admit that I myself have been married four times, and yet I still feel that it is the cornerstone of civilization, an essential institution that stabilizes society, provides a sanctuary for children and saves us from anarchy.

In stark contrast, a lack of sexual inhibitions, or as some call it, “sexual freedom,” has taken the caution and discernment out of choosing a sexual partner, which used to be the equivalent of choosing a life partner. Without a commitment, the trust and loyalty between couples of childbearing age is missing, and obviously leads to incidents of infidelity. No one seems immune.

Sometimes there are prayers for increase in scripture like Jabez’s. But don’t forget others which may be harder, but far more rewarding.

For some reason, this past Sunday, I began to think about John the Baptist’s desire that “he must increase, but I must decrease.” Perhaps I thought that because my “assistant pastor” (I preached two weeks in a row) had left for a brief vacation/NASCAR race and I was the main L.I.C. : Lad In Charge.

The music team prayed this wonderfully Christ-centered truth. I mean does it get more Christ-centered than that? Then I prayed this before I preached. And I believe it ‘worked.’

I felt excited to deliver a message which promoted a God-centered gospel as opposed to a “diet”/me-centered gospel that orients the gospel around my personal comfort and plans as opposed to compassion for others. A diet gospel will always leave us angry, but a God-centered gospel will replace that anger with compassion. That was my main point.

When preaching and expounding narratives like Jonah, especially when I re-tell the stories in an anachronistic vernacular, like “Jonah channeled his inner McGuiver or Bear Gryllis and constructed a make-shift stand,” it can be hard to transition from exposition-illustration-application. Instead my illustrations came by way of analogy rather than stories of what the truth would look like if believed and applied.

As a result, it felt choppy, and I even forgot one of my sub-points which I used alliteration to help others memorize: non-Christians are still Created in His image and Clueless (needing the Spirit to change our nature and give us a “clue.”) so God still shows them Compassion.

Yet I was the one who felt clueless! So at the end, I definitely felt like I “decreased.” And so that bummed me out a bit.

However someone came up to me afterward and said, “You were preaching right to me” and then I heard of a teenager who basically repeated some of the illustrations and the truth they were illustrating. They had gotten the message. It seemed God had answered my prayer, both parts of it! I had not “performed” my craft as well as I had liked (so I had decreased), but at least to some, Jesus had increased.

Remember that when you pray this prayer, you “decreasing” might mean you don’t look so good (in front of friends, co-workers, families, neighbors), but in the end, Jesus just may look a whole lot better to others as a result of this prayer. Don’t forget the goal in preaching, teaching, child-rearing, working, playing: that He and His Kingdom might increase while we and our might decrease.

Now that Tim Tebow has graduated from the University of Florida, and has caught on with his new team the Denver Broncos, I can root for him without any strings attached. I’m not a Tebow worshiper, as I know, like any of us, he has warts. We all do, and that’s what makes idolatry so heinous: we forsake the Holy One and instead worship created, wart-filled human beings.

But I am a Tebow fan, and one of the things I like about him is the response he elicits from teammates, coaches, fans, commentators, and opposing players. I’ve posted on this before, but the Tebow response always interests (not amazes) me. It mirrors the response Christians should expect as we live out our faith. Some people will hate us, some people will respect us.

We will be hated for everything we believe, but we are also to be salt and light, and our love/actions will make some folks big fans of us.

Mike Florio of “Pro-football.com” is not a friend of the gospel. Nevertheless, Tebow, over time, has earned his respect while at the same time has caused others like Ray Lewis to speak against him-though often without sufficient reason.

What Mr. Ray Lewis fails to realize is that former Buccaneer Coach Jon Gruden spent time with all of the top 4 quarterbacks coming out of college. And Gruden likes EVERYONE until they actually play for him; and then neither like each other once that happens!