I meant to do a few posts on the best and worst of 2011.

I may get around to it. Not that anyone cares what I think. But to start off here’s my best and worst days of 2011.

Worst day of 2011?  That’d be September 10th.  I was in Disney World of all places (Animal Kingdom actually).  I got a call from my dad who was dog-sitting for us, and had taken my dog to the vet.  I had to make the decision to have one of my best friends put to sleep while standing in the middle of the happiest place on earth.  If you aren’t a dog person, then you don’t get it.  But it was the worst day of 2011.

Best day of 2011?  That’d be December 2nd.  That was the day I heard my future child’s heartbeat.  I saw an image via ultrasound that they said was a baby, but I couldn’t make heads or tails out of it… literally.  We’d known we were having a baby for a few weeks, But to hear that heartbeat just made all so… real.  Best day of 2011… probably one of the best days I’ve had in my life period.

Can I be honest?

Sometimes ministry as a career seems more like just a career.

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I lost a good friend last Saturday.
His name was Reese.
He belong to our family for 11 years; most of his life.

He was a pembroke welsh corgi.

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“The God of Calvin is the good shepherd, who names and numbers his sheep, who saves the lost sheep and fends off the wolf. The God of Wesley is the hireling, who knows not the flock by name and number, who lets the sheep go astray and be eaten by the wolf. Which is more loving, I ask? - Steve Hays”

Litterally LOL’d on that one.  Wesley’s God does in fact allow sheep to go astray. But Calvin’s god forces sheep into the jaws of the wolf.  Which is more loving, indeed.

Hilarious stuff.

Yesterday was Christmas in Alabama, as it is most everywhere else.

It also snowed.  Not heavily.  Just a very nice dusting really.

I’ve often said I would like the snow more if Alabamians didn’t act as if they were in an apocalyptic situation every time a snow flake fell.

However yesterday, driving through the snowy weather to my parents house, and then today, driving through some really snowy patches on the way to my grandparents house, it just seemed a bit more like Christmas with the snow and all.

And then I realized how ridiculous that sounds.

Like the yankees up north have a better grasp on the Christmas spirit because of a different kind of precipitation.

So, who knows how to celebrate Christmas the best way?

Is it Jesus?  It’s his birthday after all.

Is it Bing Crosby or Nat King Cole?

Is it children who still believe in Santa?

Is it St. Nick himself?

Is it the first guy who ever stuck a pine tree in his living room?

Is it Linus reciting Luke 2 while to the rest of the Peanut gang?

Is it your grandparents?  Is it your pastor?  Is it the salvation army bell ringer?

Is it Scrooge just after his Christmas revelation by the ghosts?

Is it Charles Dickens?

Is it that guy who bought those shoes for that kid’s mom?

Is it the person who lives as if every day is Christmas?

Is it Buddy the elf?

Is it Phroomf?

Is it the newly converted guy somewhere in Asia who just heard the gospel for the first time and has never even heard of Christmas?

Is it you?

- Chick-fil-a has their crap together, so you don’t have to.

- When you mix violin, beatboxing, praise-team, a guy tapping on an ipad, an Eminem song and a children’s choir there is tension.

- the tension is good.

- people live as if there is something in the world that can fully satisfy their appetite.  i know it’s true, because i’m guilty of it.

- I can’t trade my future for a bowl of stew.

- For every seven people with clean water in the world, there is one person without clean water.

- Most people don’t want a free charity:water wrist band.

- Knife throwing is only interesting for about 10 minutes, and ONLY if it involves a giving money to a cute little girl and her favorite charity.

- Carrots and Sticks are soooooo last century.

- gmail (my favorite email provider) was not created as an assignment.  It was just a project birthed by a google employee in corporately mandated creative-time.

- Where NOT to sit at Catalyst (Any of the mid-level corner sections.  Lighting fixtures completely obscure your view of the screens)

- There are more slaves in the world today due to human trafficking than there ever have been and on the church’s watch too.

- Aussies (people from Australia) love walmart even more than we do.

- How to spell Australia.

- John Mark McMillan is pretty stinking amazing.

- The Bowl Cut is making a come back.

- Seth Godin is totally ganked his look from the Six Flags guy.

- pro-wrestling is fake, light sabers aren’t hard to build, not many people are really into bowling, cupcake failure is not fatal, and deer kill more people every year than sharks.

- actions that bring us together are at the heart of an economy built on connections.

- Some people come to Catalyst just to play Angry Birds.

- Kari Jobe wears strange head gear.

- You gotta eat it, before you tweet it.  (we are passing off so much information we don’t have time to properly absorb it)

- If pride is the graveyard of great leaders, then insecurity is it’s psych ward.

- Do not listen to Francis Chan unless you want your world rocked.

- Francis Chan is not radical.  Not at all compared to the stories in Acts.  I am tame in comparison to either.

- God wants us to brag… about knowing HIM.

- A lot of what we do in churches is weird.

- We must strive to live a life that would not seem out of place when placed next to the stories in scripture.  Proof?