But no matter how much I read or how much I study, I still make mistakes. Sometimes I just look stupid like when I repeatedly said Ruth had 6 chapters. Sometimes I’ll say something that may be completely inaccurate like when I implied Jesus met Peter for the first time the day he told him to cast the net back in the water.

Almost every week when I go back and watch the video of the message, I’ll notice how much weight I need to lose, my ridiculous habit of constantly adjusting the podium angle, and sure enough, there will be at least one jaw-dropping mistake that is just embarrassing. Here’s an example from this past Sunday:

The map above shows modern day Middle East. In my message, I used this map to show where the Jews scattered or were exiled during the diaspora of 586 BC. Problem is…

this is the map I wanted to refer to. And even after I messed it up in the first service, I forgot to fix and made the same mistake in the second service. You might be thinking, “it’s not that big of a deal you had the wrong image up, it’s of the same region.” Yeah, well, that’s not the mistake.

I got these maps from my ESV study bible where I also read the note on the regions represented in the synagogue Stephen had been preaching in Acts 6:8. When I pointed to the wrong map, my geographically inept brain pointed to Iraq, Syria, and Jordan as NORTH AFRICA! See…I NEEDED the ancient map to remind me where Africa actually was. It even shows the cities I was referred to in the verse.

Ugh…It is a wonder I ever got out of high school.

In light of all of that, I have a challenge for you. Go back and watch my past sermons and see if you can find my mistakes. Who ever finds the most wins a $25 gift card. Some are obvious and I’m sure with all the dangerously educated people out there even more will be unearthed.

RULES:

1. “mistakes” are not stuttering, talking to fast, or bad jokes…there is way to much of that to count. Find factual errors that can be verified.
2. I’m sure there will be differences of opinions and you’re welcome to throws those in the ring too, but if I can defend my position (which I should not have a problem doing), it won’t count towards your total.
3. You’ll have to leave explanations and markers (i.e. “at 4:32 you said…”) in the comment section on this post.
4. Contests ends August 31.
5. Happy hunting!

This is one of our core values. We believe it is demonstrated throughout scripture and we want to reinforce it in everything we do. Just one example off the top of my head is when Jesus told Peter to go back out and fish again after he had spent all day trying and caught nothing. They could’ve pulled in a few fish and that might have been a, “wow…how did you know? so cool, we should grab coffee some time” kind of moment. Instead, it was a “I could make so much money and expand my business after the single biggest day in my career but I choose to retire instead and follow you” kind of moment.

And no, I don’t think that is extravagance. Extravagance to me would have been Jesus standing on the shore saying, “watch this” just before raising his hands to draw every fish out of the lake one at a time while singing a perfect foreshadowing of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana – O Fortuna from his single set of divinely anointed vocal chords.

The word extravagance will have a different meaning depending on who you are. For larger churches it might mean buying a nice bus instead of a private jet. For smaller churches it might mean leading volunteers well instead of paying volunteers to do it…which I guess doesn’t make them volunteers anymore.  For us, it means being wise steward of every resource God has blessed us without skimping one ounce on the quality in every area of ministry.

Does that mean we don’t need to improve on anything? Of course not. We strive for excellence in everything we do but quickly recognize there are always areas where we can improve. That is why we have this as one of our five core values. We always want to be able to look at everything we do and hold it up to this filter and ask, “can we do this better?”

seriously…this made my day and made we want to go back and watch some old He-man cartoons to see if they redrew the animation or if they just labored and found clips that worked.

• What are you currently reading?
• What book did you last put down (notice I didn’t say finish)?
• What book is next on your list?

Here are mine:

• What are you currently reading? 1776 by David McCullough
• What book did you last put down (notice I didn’t say finish)? Speak Like Churchill, Stand Like Lincoln by James C. Humes
• What book is next on your list? Bonhoeffer by Eric Metayas

You turn.

In My Place Condemned He Stood: Celebrating the Glory of the Atonement by J.I. Packer and Mark Dever

Here’s the plan:

1. You’re on your own to get the book.
2. On first day of each month at 8pm, we will meet together (via video or telephone conference for those who can’t meet in person).
3. Everyone is to bring at least 15 comments and one book suggestions for the next month (books can be any genre & diversity is preferred).
4. All book suggestions will be put into a hat/bucket/some kind of container with one drawn at random.
5. Members chronically absent from the monthly meetings will not be invited back.

If you’d like to join, leave a comment on the blog and I’ll get in touch with you or message me on twitter. The official twitter hashtag is #thebookclub (it’s been abandoned so we’re going to snatch it up). If you’re not on twitter, now is a good time to start.