I’m a huge fan of advent. It constantly and properly reminds us where we stand: smack dab in the middle of Christ’s first and second comings. Thankful for all that he has accomplished, and longing for Him to finish what He started. A dude named Tullian (I’m not getting into spelling his last name) wrote a good little blurb on Advent. I doubt I’d do any better, so I commend his to you. He’s the 2nd person to recommend this little Advent devotional from Christ the King Presbyterian Church (PCA). Click here and you can download it for free. I checked it out and it is fantastic. Amy and I will be hitting it up from this day forward. Of course it’s not as good as the one I created (I’m not biased or anything), but it’s a very close second and more family friendly! I hope you give it a whirl. I know it will help you celebrate (with thankfulness AND longing) Christmas all month, especially in the midst of the economy, busyness, family issues, sickness, and suffering.

Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” served as my introduction when I preached at my best bud’s ordination service a few years back. I used the last lines “Miles to go before I sleep. Miles to go before I sleep….” as commentary on how we feel much of the time. Well I felt the “miles to go” part again tonight.

Since everyone is busy-I’ve met few people who say they’re not busy-I’m sure all of us have felt despair at the proverbial miles we feel we must travel before we get a chance to sleep. All of the stuff to do (bills to pay, chores, reports, papers, sermons, books to read, relationships to mend, etc….). Especially during Xmas time when everything seems to get busier.

In fact, these “miles” I must travel next week are a large reason why I’m up blogging at 12:30 am tonight. I was already awake BEFORE Connar started his midnight gas routine that woke him and Amy up.

When I preached at the ordination service I camped out at Colossians 1:28-29 where Paul mentions that he struggles with all Christ’s energy which so powerfully works in him. In fact his goal was to present everyone “perfect” (I think he means “perfect” as in mature). A lofty goal no doubt. Paul lost sleep, I’m sure, worrying about his churches (II Cor 11:28). But he also slept content at night (Phil 4:11-13).

And so we can sleep and rest even now. There will be many more miles to travel tomorrow, yet we have someone who promises to sustain us during those miles. After all it is “His energy” which powerfully works in us. I can sleep. I can rest. If I believe, which I’m obviously not doing right now (its always easier to preach a verse than believe a verse) or I would be in bed. There’s still hope for me and help in my unbelief (Mark 9:23). I just hope that help comes soon.

I’ve never like the University of Tennessee football team. For reasons that are probably unreasonable. But now I have one more reason that is perhaps a bit more, well, reasonable. They recently hired Lane Kiffin as their head coach. That joker is only 2 years older than I am. Crazy.

But the real problem is that his father is Monte Kiffin, the Buc’s defensive coordinator for the last 13 or so years. Guess where he’ll be going next year? To coach with his son. Can you imagine being your dad’s boss?

One of the things that both former Buc’s coach Tony Dungy and Monte Kiffin were really good at was leadership development. A number of Dungy’s assistants, and several position coaches under Monte have gone on to head coaching and defensive coordinating positions.

The mark of a good leader in any arena, in my opinion, is indispensability. Is he making the church, organization, or team utterly dependent upon him or is he doing everything possible to develop leadership under him. In other words, will the organism go south when he leaves, retires, or dies? Or did he/she do all that was possible to make him/herself dispensable?

Some sports talk host believed that the mark of a good coach was how well the team did when he left. He argued in that light, Gruden is great: the Raiders still haven’t recovered; Dungy was not so good: the Bucs won the Superbowl the next year. Yet even secular models of leadership, as presented in Good to Great, recognize the need to be team-centered as opposed to being single leader-oriented.

That leadership reflection finds reference in II Tim 2:2, where Paul tells Timothy, “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.” Any leader who fails to train up other leaders fails to lead well. Otherwise he/she will just be creating a culture that is dependent upon him/her.

We’ll see how well Monte Kiffin trained up others under him (they’ll probably hire within, getting a “Kiffin disciple”) next year as the Bucs will spend their first year without him calling plays. Based upon Kiffin’s philosophy and track record, the Buc’s should be fine.

Once Thanksgiving ends, the Xmas season, at least for all commercial and residential purposes, begins. Since Connar hasn’t experienced any Christmases yet, we have yet to develop any distinctly Christmas Henderson family traditions. In order to form them, we will become somewhat syncretistic: absorbing some Henderson-Nance traditions, but also taking new bits and pieces of other folks’ traditions and blending them together. Not a good idea when it comes to the orthodox Christian faith, but perhaps very helpful when developing new family traditions.

And since I’ve already blogged on the need to evaluate all traditions, I’m guarding against becoming Clark Griswald from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Clearly the Christmas family traditions were for him, and not his family as a whole. So with that said, please post any of your favorite family Christmas traditions. We may steal them, tweak them, use them, or pass them on. You may give others some good ideas, and they may give you some. A win-win.

I had a great Thanksgiving weekend. We took Connar to the Zoo and watched him splash about trying to grab the Sting Rays in the “petting” tank. That was probably the highlight of the weekend for me.

One person who didn’t have a good weekend was N.Y. Giants wide receiver Plaxico Buress. He accidentally shot himself in the leg. Unfortunately it only got worse from there. Something about gun laws, and possessing firearms. So he had to turn himself in today, and potentially face a minimum of three years for his crime. Getting shot, and then getting arrested for shooting yourself. How about that for a Thanksgiving weekend?

Well he can still be thankful the bullet didn’t hit any major arteries and cause him to bleed to death in the night club. That and the fact that most NFL players not named Michael Vick ever serve jail time during their careers. Plaxico can sit around the table with family and be thankful that high priced lawyers usually trump common sense justice (this dude already helped Puff Daddy get off from a similar charge 8 years ago). As John Cougar Mellencamp sang, “Ain’t that America..”

Thanksgiving was a great day for me. Our joint Thanksgiving service (with St. Paul’s Missionary Baptist) was great, the food was great, and time with family was great. The only thing that wasn’t great was the football. And that has pretty much become standard for Thanksiving Day. Why? Somehow it became tradition to have the Detroit Lions play EVERY Thanksgiving day.

One the seminars I went to at the National Outreach Conference a few weeks ago was entitled something like “Spiritual Formation as Evangelism.” I had never heard of the lad before, Todd Hunter, (he kind of looked like Darryl Hammond from SNL from a distance) but was quite impressed by his knowledge, experience, and presentation. He was arguing that we need to examine the main questions non-believers are asking. Traditionally folks have broken them down into two major categories.

1.) Is God real?
2.) What difference would it make if I believed in that God? Would I even like who I would become?

Most often we deal with the first. In the 80’s that really worked. Crusades, Lord-Liar-Lunatic arguments, and the like. But now the questions people are asking really are reversed. In other words, people are seeking to know “Does this Jesus make me care more or care less about the world, justice, humanity, love, beauty, truth?” If that is not the case, then they really aren’t up for hearing arguments about His existence/character/involvement in world. The presenter’s point was not to scrap apologetics (his buddy Lee Stroebel was in the room next door lecturing on Apologetics), but to make sure we reverse the order in which we answer the questions.

If people can see that Christ really does make us less judgmental, more caring, more concerned for mercy, more loving, truly free (question 2) then they will be more open to discussing HOW we got that way (question 1). Christ, the perfect human, molds us into what it means to be more fully human, not less.

As president of Alpha-USA, he interviews a lot of folks involved in outreach. One of his examples was Inter-Varsity. Apparently all the college folks who came to faith and became involved in IV, first came as a result of some sort of mercy/justice/creation care/mission project. You mean you care about the Earth, the poor, justice, love, and you’re willing to put TIME into doing something about it? That was their first question. They didn’t want to believe in a God who doesn’t care about that stuff. Fortunately our God does, and these believers showed them that through their lives.

It shows the need to not only invite folks to attractional (paintball, parties, get-togethers)/apologetic events (outward focused bible studies), but also through things like Habitat for Humanity, Operation Christmas Child/Angel Tree, cleaning the road, book/movie/philosophy discussions, environmental care projects, etc…

I usually listen to a radio fishing show with Capt’s Billy Nobles and Mike Anderson on the way to church. Since I live about 5 minutes from the church, I don’t get to hear very much. But some times I’m able to gather a few nice morsels of information. This Sunday the hosts discussed some service opportunities at Metropolitan Ministries in Tampa. Apparently there has been a shift in ministry focus. Instead of simply giving people stuff, they are now doing more now to equip those in need.

One of the hosts informed me of a bible verse that I was currently unaware of. He spoke of the biblicity of Metropolitan Ministries’ vision, reminding the listeners, “It’s like that verse in the bible, ‘Give a man a fish, feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, feed him for a life time.”

Two thoughts came to mind.

1.) That verse may come from III Opinions, but it is definitely not in the bible. Nevertheless, it is wise, and is a good application of the commandment to love our neighbor.

2.) It really is important to know what the scriptures say and where they say it. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard, “It’s like that verse somewhere that says something like…” Sometimes our summaries of verses are so far off that we’re not much different than that fishing guide: assuming that the “verse” in question is actually in the bible. Lately I’ve been challenged myself to spend more time in the Word so that I don’t fall into this trap and so that I don’t allow others to either.

Finally some good news for FSU football. Not just on the field, but off the field (you don’t need to bring up the brawl which is still under investigation-I know about that!). Myron Rolle was awarded the Rhodes scholarship, which affords him two years of study at Oxford. Remember, Rolle is a starting Safety for FSU, and one who has potential to play Sundays in the NFL.

After the game, a reporter asked him what his plans were. Would he go to the NFL or take the scholarship now and spend two years away from football? I’m really not sure if the scholarship is something that can be put on hold or not. Apparently he plans on becoming a doctor and opening up a clinic to help the poor after playing pro-football. So that may have an affect on this more immediate decision. What would you do in his situation?

Here’s an article from Jim Hatch, the dude in charge of church planting for the PCA. It is called “U-Haul Theology.” In light of the transient state of young adults and younger families (well, really all generations since we have a large number of “snow birds” here in Florida), I found this a well thought out theology of both moving and staying. And since we just lost yet another family to a move, and will probably lose one or two more in several months, I found this an apropos time to post this article. I highly recommend taking a few minutes to read “U-Haul Theology,” which is both comforting and challenging to those moving or staying put.