From an already maddening man, here comes the ultimate in awfulness! Jon & Kate Gosselin have already made a big mess with parading their kids on the reality show "Jon & Kate Plus Eight" and having very public fights that has led to a now public divorce. I think both of them need to get away from the cameras and reporters and get their lives and priorities straightened out but this one quote just infuriated me.

As an explanation for what caused him to act the way he did, Jon said, “It’s hard for a man to stay home for two years and change diapers and make meals and deal with doctor’s appointments and all the stuff that you expect your wife to do.”

While I think men should work and support their family, the care and raising of kids is not merely the job of the wife. This guy shows a real lack of understanding of true manhood. If you are a dad, you should follow the link on the blog homepage over to MentorDad blog. It has great suggestions for what real Fatherhood looks like.

I am having a great morning here at home. Did school with my daughter and played lincoln logs with my youngest. Middle boy has spent a lot of time on daddy's lap this morning. It has been a good morning! As I enjoy the morning and just relish the joys of my life, I think about others I know who are not so joyful. There are some who find joy hard because of circumstances beyond their control. Disease or accident or others malfeasance has caused them struggle. Even then, some who deal with these things are able to find joy in the Lord despite these situations. Then there are the rest. I see so many people today who do not live lives of joy by choice. They make poor decisions and don't like the results. They hold on to anger, hurt, disappointment, and strife. They get frustrated with those around them that are different and hold on to bad attitudes. Rather than celebrate the blessings, they focus on the shortcomings. Allow me to illustrate. Read the first paragraph on this post again. That is my picture of this morning. Would it surprise you to know that I also have had to change a diaper, mediate several disputes and deal with a screaming child? Probably sounds pretty normal. It is, but what I am focused on this morning are the blessings of God in my life and the joy that they bring. I'm not going to complain that the rose has thorns, I am going to rejoice in the sight and smell of the rose. So how about you? Do you have a tendency to make yourself miserable? Do you blame others for your misery? How often are you fixated on the negative, on the problems, on that which does not conform to your will? Stop making misery! God has placed many blessings and opportunity for blessing before you. Make the right choice, not the self serving choice. Let go of anger, hurt, and disappointment. What is God giving you today? If you live in my area, it is a beautiful sunny day outside. There is a good start! (Closing note: While writing this, I've had to deal w/ one more dispute but got four kisses from my youngest. Life is GREAT! I pray you chose joy today!)

It was a great night tonight at Koinonia Kostume Karnival. There was a great turnout and great participation. It is great that we can have such a good time as a church family. I know our kids had a great time and I think all the kids did. It was great to see some of the families from outside the church that joined us tonight as well. I am SO appreciative of Aimee Dalton who put the whole night together. She did a great job lining everyone up and coordinating the evening. Other thanks go to Joe Knapp for brining his tractor and giving the rides. Nate, Cody, & Charlene who put together the box maze. Beth & Randy who brought the pizzas, the social committee that put together all the other refreshments, and all those who dressed up their vehicles for trunk-r-treating. I'm sure there are others who were involved who I have failed to mention here and I am thankful for everyone who had a role in making tonight great. It really shows how wonderful it is when the body works together.

So it is ironic that the day after I post "Why Pastors Should Blog" that I don't get a blog post done. I guess that is life. Most of yesterday was dedicated to getting a newsletter done for church. We haven't' had a newsletter this calendar year, so I was really overdue. Between that and having errands to run, the kids had dentists appointments in the morning, so I had my #3 child while the older two were at Dr Giradin's with mommy. All that added up to no time to blog. Oh well. I am up early this morning because Ben Bailey is supposed to arrive any time to start work on the new front to our shed. I am excited to get this done but I am really tired right now. Surprisingly, the kids are not up yet which is very rare. They are actually sleeping in this morning which is nice. So if you are looking for something to do today, come on over and help build a small shed addition since we are hoping to get most if not all of it done today. As for me, time to go find a caffeinated beverage and try to get going.

A pastor friend of mine through CB connected me to a post on Abraham Piper's blog about reasons why a Pastor should blog. I was intrigued and went to read it myself. I found it really interesting and want to share the main points here. I found that some of the reasons he gave were reasons I wanted to begin the blog, and other reasons were things I have discovered since beginning the blog. Below are his points with my own commentary. You can read his original blog entry HERE if you are interested in his commentary.

• 1. to write. Writing and thinking go hand and hand and the more you write, the more it can help order your though process. I have found that before I need to work on a message, writing a blog post really helps warm up my thinking and help me do much better in my other work. It also let's me test drive ideas and thoughts that later get developed into radio shows and devotionals. Yesterdays blog made it into my prayer meeting devotional last night. The other way this helps is the discipline. I try to write each day that I have any time in the office. There are days when the schedule is just too busy, but for the most part I have been doing well on this. The discipline is good for me as I continue to work on what is one of my primary weaknesses.
• 2. to teach. Sometimes there is just more I want to say than will comfortably fit in a sermon, and as I am constantly trying to learn, I come across a lot of things that it would be great to share, but there is just never a place to. This becomes a great place to do it.
• 3. to recommend. Like the previous item, I come across articles and tools that may be helpful and this provides an easy forum to mention them.
• 4. to interact. There is more that could happen on this one. It would be great if more people, after reading an entry, would take a moment to comment. Now and then someone does and that is always great. Several sometimes leave the feedback over on Facebook and that is helpful too. Facebook often becomes a good interaction forum. It is great to connect and hear back what people are thinking about the things that we as pastors share.
• 5. to develop an eye for what is meaningful. This is so true as I have discovered after doing the blog. When you read something or experience something, you begin to think "would this work on the blog?" It is a great habit that helps to record things that then also may find their way into sermons and lessons.
• 6. to be known. Piper says, "This is where I see the greatest advantage for blogging pastors." This was my primary purpose in writing the blog. Just to reveal more of myself. Too often pastors consider their private lives as more of a secret to be kept. But as they drilled into me at pastors school, "more is caught than taught." You can not get to know me very well just by listening every Sunday. Yes, I share my life from the pulpit, but it is still a very small window. On here you can hear me talk about the Red Sox, the kids and our parenting, what I like and don't like and what my week is looking like. When something is on my mind or heart, I often end up with a blog post about it. Another quote from Piper's blog on this point.

  You can't be everybody's friend, and keeping a blog is not a way of pretending that you can. It's simply a way for your people to know you as a human being, even if you can't know them back. This is valuable, not because you're so extraordinary, but because leadership is more than the words you say. If you practice the kind of holiness that your people expect of you, then your life itself opened before them is good leadership even when you fail.

I think that last point is so critical and I really like what he says there in that quote. Too often us pastors can mistake privacy for secrecy. There are elements of my life and marriage that deserve some privacy. I don't share the content of every fight Sarah and I have or everything we do, but my life should be an open book where you know how my marriage is going and how my kids are doing and how I am doing. If my private life becomes a secret life and all you see is a performance I put on at church, where is the connection with your life? How can I be real if you don't see the real me? It won't be as pretty, as you who know me already know, but it will be genuine and hopefully something you can relate to. And just a warning to you blog readers, I'm probably going to use some of this stuff in the next church newsletter (which is WAYYY overdue!)