As if fast food wasn't unhealthy enough ...

Macaroni and cheese ...not known as the healthiest food in the world.
So what does Jack in the Box say about it? "Let's deep fry it!"
And the result?



And I hear they're not even all that good, anyway.

Friday Five - Things I Don't Like

It's Friday, and it's time for yet another Friday Five. Today, 5 things I don't like that ordinarily, most people do:

1. Sea food - While I recognize that not everyone likes fish and shrimp and other sea food, in general I find that people do. I don't. I detest sea food, actually.

2. String cheese - Growing up, it seemed like every kid had string cheese in their lunch box, but not Ariel. I've just never been into string cheese.

3. Snapping - For some reason, I don't like when people snap ...it's actually really irritating. It makes me a little mad, actually. Perhaps it's because I can't snap, but I just get very aggravated when people around me snap.

4. Swimming - I occasionally swim, but very rarely. I can swim once, MAYBE twice a year, and that's enough for me. I'm just not really a swimming kind of guy.

5. Halloween - I absolutely hate Halloween ...I mean, HATE it. I hate everything it's about. I hate that it glorifies and celebrates death and evil and everything that is the opposite of who God is and what He's about and what we Christians are supposed to be about. I hate that girls tend to think it's the one time of year when it's acceptable and encouraged to dress slutty, as a nurse or policewoman or kitty cat or whatever. I hate that it's the holiest day of the year for satanists and that they are really active that night, doing horribly evil things that I'm not even gonna write about in this post (I'll probably write about Halloween later on this month). I simply HATE Halloween and can hardly wait for November 1st, so that I don't have to deal with Halloween again for another year.

(By the way, I didn't intentionally pick the first 4 things that start with the letter "s" ...it just kind of happened like that.)



What are some things you don't like that usually, most people do?

A very tender experience.

So these past few days, I was in Dallas for a youth ministry conference. Since it was such a short trip, I flew of course. As I was boarding the plan on Monday morning to leave El Paso for the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, I had the sweetest encounter.

If you've ever flown, you know that there's a place before you board the plane to put strollers and wheelchairs. Well as I was walking up to the plane, there was a mom with her baby, two big bags of baby paraphernalia, and a big, bulky stroller trying to leave it at that designated place. I saw that she was struggling to fold up the stroller while juggling her daughter and the massive baby bags.

Thankfully, God instantaneously put it in my mind to offer help, so I did. I thought that maybe I could hold her bags or put away the stroller or something, but she told me that what would help her the most would be to hold her daughter for her. She didn't phrase it with such a descriptive question, but simply said "could you hold her for me?"

So I did. And it was the sweetest, most tender moment I think I've ever experienced.

I only held that baby for a few moments, maybe 15 seconds at most, but those few moments were the most heart-warming, tender, affectionate, loving moments I had ever had. I held her close to my chest and with her eyes locked on mine, I could feel her body warmth and could feel every beat of her precious little heart.

Without sounding like a weirdo baby stealer or something, I really loved that baby. I don't even know her name and will never see her again, but in that moment I felt, to the best of my ability, what I think I will feel when I have a child of my own. I wanted to protect her from the evil in this world. I wanted to hold her and snuggle with her and teach her and guide her and comfort her and just love her in the way that God created us to love each other.

Man ...I know I sound like a girl, but I just can't even describe how precious that experience was for me.

And now I can hardly wait until I have a son or daughter of my own. Flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood that I can hold close to my heart and cherish and guide and comfort and love like Jesus loves me.


"How sweet to hold a newborn baby,
And feel the pride and joy he gives;
But greater still the calm assurance:
This child can face uncertain days because He Lives!"

Sunday night mind-purge.

- On Tuesday at our weekly staff meeting, God totally interrupted what we had planned and called us to take a risk. On Tuesday, we stopped what we were doing, prayed, and made the decision to move forward on something that we had been planning to do in the next few years, but that God is calling us to take a risky gamble step of faith on THIS year. This year, in this economy, in this stage in the life of Del Sol Church. This is totally a God-risk, and we're gonna see if it sinks or swims. If it succeeds, then it's gonna be AWESOME. If it fails, at least we'll fail spectacularly and go out with a bang! =)

- If things line up, I'll be an instrumental part of that risk.

- I REALLY wish I could talk about all the specifics of this. You have NO idea.

- On Wednesday, I went to Youth for Christ at Montwood High School. I just want to say that Wendell Powers from Cielo Vista Church is an incredible communicator.

- Wednesday night was my Youth Leadership Team GrowGroup. Right as I was about to get in the car to drive to the church building, I started getting a bad migraine. By God's grace I was able to lead the group, and when I got home at about 9 pm I just crashed and slept for like 10 hours.

- Whenever I get a migraine, it's always in the same spot and it's always about a 3 day experience. The first day I get the blinding, terribly painful, sharp migraine. The next day I feel like I was hit by a truck and my brain is in a vise. The third day, the "vise" finally releases, but it still hurts a bit.

- Thursday was my friend/accountability partner Jeremy Kroeker's birthday. 29 ...that's dangeously close to 30. I also had the privilege of preaching at the Mix that night.

- The energy at the Mix was really, really weird. It was a smaller group than usual, lots of people were not feeling well, and several had headaches. I still felt sick, and the negative energy didn't help much. Thank God He took over and spoke through me or else it would've been a disaster.

- Went to Taco Cabana with Rick and Kristin after the Mix. All I can say is "CHIMIS!!!" ...then in a sad, disappointed tone: "chimis ..."

- Friday was my day off, but I just did not feel rested at all. Saturday wasn't all that different because the faucet in the kitchen broke, so I had to learn how to replace it and how to replace some of the piping under the sink.

- Most of the week, I just felt like I was in a big funk and I was praying like crazy for God to restore to me the joy of my salvation.

- I finally felt His joy again this morning. Today was a pretty good day at church. Our numbers were up like crazy! Usually we have about 1,000 people including worship celebrations, youth, and kids but today we had nearly 1,000 people JUST in our worship celebrations!!! Talk about awesome energy!

- What a great message from God through pastor Walter today:
~ You can succeed in every way and fail at relationships.
~ It's not that you don't love your wife and kids ...it's that you love your job more.
~ Why give yourself to those who don't love you at the expense of those who do?
~ Does God know He can trust you when you're all alone?
~ When the men of this church are united for one task, nothing can stop this church!
~ Ministry ALWAYS costs. It's often not comfortable and usually not convenient.
~ We have to become more than just coffee & donut Christians. What are you sacrificing for Jesus?
~ You wanna truly live? Gamble it all and go broke for Jesus.
~ The greatest challenge in life is to live for God. The question is ...are you man enough?

Friday Five - Sports Teams.

It's Friday (for a few more minutes at least), and so it's time for a Friday Five. Today, my 5 favorite sports teams:

1. The UTEP Miners

2. The J.M. Hanks High School Knights

3. The San Antonio Spurs. Go Spurs, Go!

4. The UT Longhorns

5. The New York Yankees

Post-weekend purge.

- On Monday, I started a new week, volunteered for lunch at Wayside, and spent a couple of hours working at the Firehouse on our expansion:

Man, it's amazing how much garbage renovating a 1,000 square foot shopping center suite produces! This pile, which is about 4 feet tall, isn't even a third of the trash we've taken out of there:



- Tuesday was the 1 year anniversary of Vista del Sol Baptist Church voting to become Del Sol Church. It was tough helping people see the need for the change, and some just were not able to come around, but in the end we have seen incredible spiritual and numerical growth and so while I'm sad that some left, I'm glad we made the decision - the right decision.

- Wednesday morning I took some of the staff out to the International Family Missions ranch out in Fabens. I had been there before, but it was great to see it again and learn even more about the needs there. They facilitate and equip families coming in on mission trips, but I think that we can help them with some of their needs at the campus. I really see us equipping the equippers.

- Wednesday was also First Wednesday Lord's Supper service at Del Sol Church. It was a great time of worship and remembering Christ's death. First Wednesday is always so humbling and centering for me; it's good to take some time to intentionally stop and remember Christ's sacrifice.

- Like 2 minutes before we started the program, Craig, our worship pastor, asked me to pray at the end of the song set. I wish I had been given more notice, but it was still a great experience to be on the main stage. I'd like to do that more often.

- Thursday was the Mix. We started our new "YouPick" message series by talking about some miscellaneous questions. This coming week, I'll be talking about the Presidential election and who Jesus would vote for. This should be good!

- After the Mix, Troy, Rick, Kristin, and I had a late dinner at Cheddar's. That was pretty cool, but what I enjoyed even more was talking with Rick and Kristin for over 2 hours after we left when the restaurant closed. We walked out of the restaurant a little after 10 pm, but we stayed and talked 'til nearly 12:30 am.

- El Paso is SOOOOOOOOO beautiful at night.

- Seriously ...it's such a beautiful place all the time, but it's so much more majestic when the sun goes down.

- I love Fridays. I love not having to rush to get ready and go to work. I love being able to just sit and watch TV, read a book, or get under the blankets and watch a good movie.

- I really did not enjoy working Parents Night Out on Friday night though. It's nice to have the extra cash, but I'm seriously thinking of quitting. After all, if Fridays are my day off, I probably shouldn't be working on my day off anyway.

- On Saturday I worked all morning on my front yard, getting it ready for the fall. I really hope that this cold will keep it from growing until the Spring, because even though I enjoy yard work, at this point I'm sick of spending EVERY Saturday doing yard work.

- I love Sundays. And I love Del Sol Church.

- I didn't get to see the overall count today, but our numbers in the youth were wayyy down. Maybe because of the weather?

- Some Walterisms:
~ Complaining doesn't just make the complainer miserable; it makes EVERYONE miserable.
~ The hardest part is admitting you're a complainer.
~ Complaining is like bad breath: we recognize it in others, but not in ourselves.
~ Complaining makes us forget God, but gratitude causes us to focus on God.
~ Complaining is a sin because it's questioning God's existence, doubting His care, and forgetting His goodness.
~ What would it look like if we as a church exchanged blasts for blessings? If we replaced complaining with compliments?

- And wow ...Craig did a GREAT job with the worship celebration today. I totally did not expect that last song! Nice, Craig ...nice.

It's coming!

Driving by my local Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse on Thursday night told me one thing:


Christ-mas is coming!!!

81 more days.