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THE Christmas Story

A couple of years ago we were setting up for our Christmas Eve service at the big hotel convention center. These kiddos were troopers and spent hours there waiting on their dads.
I grabbed a camcorder and had them follow me around the hotel for this spontaneous video.
It’s rough, raw footage with bad lighting and difficult audio, but is still one of my favorite Christmas videos ever… and man, have they grown up since then!
Instead of a new blog article this week, I’d like to offer this retro video as a reminder of the season…Merry Christmas!

THE Christmas Story from Andy Addis on Vimeo.

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Putting the “go” in gobble, gobble

Psalm 105

1 Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name;

make known among the nations what he has done.

2 Sing to him, sing praise to him;

tell of all his wonderful acts.

3 Glory in his holy name;

let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.

4 Look to the Lord and his strength;

seek his face always.

What a great time of year!

For most of us, Thanksgiving is the official launch to the holiday season. We are looking forward to a day of doing nothing, watching football and eating more food than should probably be consumed in an entire week

I am right there with you.

I’m just going to have to hope that the other campus pastors who I am competing against in our year-end weight loss competition will be just as frail, and undisciplined as me (I can dream can’t I?)

But on this wonderful holiday called Thanksgiving I wonder if we really are expressing our thankfulness as we should…

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Let it flow…

As a church we are in the midst of a series of material called The Blessed Place On Earth.

I love the concept of blessing in Scripture. I love the way God’s people long for blessing. I have prayed the prayer’s with others, for others and for myself that God’s blessing would fall.

But, this series has led me into a direction of remembering one of the oldest promises for God’s people. That we are to become a blessing for those around us.

It is quite clear that God does not bless His children so that they can become a stock tank full of blessing. He blesses His children so that they can become a free flowing stream of blessing to  the world around them.

If you have ever seen a stock tank that has sat unattended for a long time without circulation or changing, that water gets nasty! The same is true with the believer who continually stockpiles blessings and never becomes a blessing to those around them.

The best way to make your blessings continue, to make an impact in this generation, is to make sure that every blessing on you, passes through you, to become a blessing to someone else near you. That’s what we mean by making our homes the most blessed places on Earth.

But it’s not just our homes, we need our churches, schools, workplaces, and every other place that Christians go to be places of blessing as it drips off of us, after God rained it down upon us.

So, what is this incredible Scripture that teaches us to not only receive blessing, but to be a blessing. We find it in Genesis 12:

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The Power of Mentoring

I have a nearly indescribable feeling that I would like to, well… describe to you.

I am refreshed, energized, challenged and at peace. If you don’t know much about we preacher types, that’s unusual for a Monday morning. In fact, I have preacher friends who have a ritual of writing their resignation letters every Monday, praying over them and then throwing them away.

I thank God I don’t get that kind of grief every weekend, or at least that I’m too thick in the head to notice it… please don’t point it out if I am. I’d like to stay blissfully unaware.

The reason for my Monday morning glee is that I just spent two plus hours with one of the two men I consider to be my mentors in life and ministry. In the course of that time we talked about what we have been reading, what we have been experiencing and what has us dumbfounded.

Funny, I talked the most during that last part…

Over the years I have established a relationship with these men that allows them to be honest with me, even when I am both ignorant and stupid. There is a difference between those two you know?

Ignorance is when you do something stupid, but didn’t know you were doing something stupid. Stupid, is doing something when you’re already pretty sure whatever you’re doing might be stupid.

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When you’re hot, you’re hot

The world is perishing for lack of the knowledge of God and the Church is famishing for want of His Presence. The instant cure of most of our religious ills would be to enter the Presence in spiritual experience, to become suddenly aware that we are in God and that God is in us. This would lift us out of our pitiful narrowness and cause our hearts to be enlarged. This would burn away the impurities from our lives as the bugs and fungi were burned away by the fire that dwelt in the bush. – A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit Of God 

 

 

A simple thought today. Not one to change a belief system, or alter the course of one’s destiny (Calvinists should be happy with that line since I said destiny, and Arminians should be happy since I mentioned altering it). 

This is a thought I have been pondering  since a phone call with a friend a few weeks ago. He and I had been reading A.W.  Tozers “Pursuing God” (one of the best books in the universe, by the way). He called me as I was sitting in the drive through of our bank and asked, “Why does this guy compare God to fire? I thought that was the symbol for the devil.” 

The question really caused me to think and admit, that our culture really does associate fire/flames with evil and satanic (I don’t capitalize that name on purpose, just so you know). 

I’m sure its because of our Holoywood-esque images of hell. 

Continue reading “When you’re hot, you’re hot”

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Get with it!

When it all comes down to it… It all comes down to it.

Sometimes we just lack the discipline to do what we needs to be done. We have lots of excuses, rationalizations and outs to cover us… But, the reality is that when stuff needs done, we need discipline.

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Knives, Throwing Stars & Parenting

No idea how this happens, but it seems like at least twice a year a major cleaning up of the garage is needed. Or, you have find someplace else to park car.

So, after a few hours of shuffling around what goes in the garage sale stack versus what gets “organized” in the keep bins, I wasn’t feeling all that sentimental.

Hit me anyway.

We have on old, particle board dresser we keep for storage. In the top drawer are all kinds of pads and gloves for various sports. Second drawer is for racquetball junk. Third is for hiking stuff. But, the fourth has been my favorite for years.

In this drawer are things that predate my boys, even my marriage. They stretch far into the wayback of my life. Back to the grade school and junior high days.

There’s an assortment of throwing stars and nun chucks from the time in which Chuck Norris was my hero. I have no martial arts skills anymore, but I do have a sweet Chuck beard.

There’s my one and only bb gun. A handheld CO2 pistol. Awesome.

Then there are the dozens of pocketknives, boot knives, throwing knives and anything sharp and dangerous that a teenage boy who spent way too much time on the shelter belts had to have!

At least that’s what used to be in the bottom drawer. But, opening it up to hideaway a pocket knife, I was startled to see it was almost empty… basically just the bb gun remains.

I paused, thought and teared up a little. I guess I haven’t pondered it much, but over the years as my boys have grown I’ve been dolling these things out to them one at a time.

We will watch a movie and see some ninja do something too cool for words, and then I take them out to the garage and show them a bit of my past (trying to lead them to believe I was once a ninja myself… without saying it, of course). The response is usually, “that’s awesome!” and then I pass along a bit of the Addi family heritage to them in the form of some cheap, semi-dangerous, all boy commodity.

So, now the drawer is nearly empty. It’s a good thing.

I hope they grow up like me. I’m not perfect, I have lots I am still working on, but as I press into 40 (wait for it… not there yet), I’m hoping I have a lot of the basics down.

I want them to be stable. I want them to love family. I want them to not give up on marriage. I want them to make a difference. I want them to risk big when the time is right. I want them to hold tight to the things that should never be risked. I want them to love the Lord more than anything else in this life, or the next.

None of that happens naturally. You have to intentionally open up the drawer and give it away.

It’s our job as men, brothers, fathers and mentors in the church to live our lives in a way that we pack items away like faithfulness, passion, discipline, hope and love. Only then can we offer it up to our kids and the young ones of the next generation.

Deuteronomy 6:3 Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your fathers, promised you. 4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates.

It’s time for us to unpack the most important things in life. While you’re teaching them how to throw a curve ball, why don’t you talk to them about handling the ones life throws at you.

While you’re straightening up the house, why not remind them it’s a Godly man who keeps their house in order.

When your teaching them to grow up, make sure it’s not just how to look good, but be good, righteous, strong in the Lord.

The next generation is waiting for you to open up the drawer…

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Why Pray Anyway?

Have you ever made a purchase only to be disappointed?

I am always trying to warn my kids, that what they see on TV commercials is almost never what they will have when they get it home.

I sure wish I’d listened to my own advice.

I have an iPhone and iPad, so, I’m constantly looking through the App Store trying to find the latest and greatest stuff to make my life “easier.”

You read the reviews, ask a few people who might know about such things, then lay down the cash and make the purchase.

I’ve been trying to find a way to make my iPad more interactive with our weekend services, and I found this software that sounded like it might do what I needed it to do, possibly, maybe, sort of.

But, when I bought it, it did everything it said it would do, just not what I wanted it to do. So, I tried to manipulate my computer, or projectors and messed with every setting I could find.

Within 24 hours, I had requested a refund for the software purchase and was rebuilding my entire laptop because what I tried to do had destroyed it… I am an idiot.

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Don’t read this blog… unless…

Don’t read this blog… Unless you’re ready to seriously interrupt your day; your life.

I’m serious.

I’m currently in rural Nebraska attending an annual meeting of our two state convention’s denomination. These are all really good people (except that one guy, but that’s another story), everybody loves the Lord and makes a real effort to get along.

But, by the very nature of this meeting, between the sermons, the praying and the singing they try to conduct some business and take a few votes (by the way, worship and voting should not exist in the same sentence, but that’s another blog).

Last night at our first gathering, there was some tension. Not too bad, handled well and Godly, but it reminded me of my days pastoring in Texas where professional ministers in freshly pressed suits and coiffed hair tore each other apart with words like ‘brother’ and ‘ fellowship’ sprinkled in their tirade.

Honestly, I have always been bothered by disunity in the body and the way we handle our disagreements. But, what’s bothered me the most are the subjects of our feuding.

The things that we scrap over are almost never a big deal! A percentage of this, the wording for that, picking who is in charge of what. Most of the time these things fall into the category of “stupid junk,” it’s a file in my lower right desk drawer at work.

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Opposite Attract

There is an old saying that opposites attract.

Often it is used in the awkwardly romantic, Paula Abdul-esque way to describe how couples…er, compliment one another.

  • Mrs. Always Late marries Mr. Electronic Organizer
  • Mr. Arm Chair Quarterback/Wanna-Be Gladiator marries Mrs. Doily Crocheter
  • Mrs. Wakes With The Dawn marries Mr. Up By The Crack Of Noon

I guess it does happen from time to time, but honestly, I think the more common occurrence is in the attraction of opposites that truly are opposite. They don’t complement each other, in fact, they don’t even like each other. But, despite their disdain for one another they end up being just like the other.

  • Republicans and Democrats
  • Your NFL team and my NFL team

Just plug in any rivalry and you’ll see what I’m talking about. When opposites attract it usually is not a marriage of convenience, or even compatibility. Yet, it’s often amazing just how similar those opposites can be.

Continue reading “Opposite Attract”