Rick Warren jumps into the blogosphere

Rick Warren
Pastor Rick Warren started up his own blog a little month or so ago, but it looks like he’s only been posting with any regularity for the last few weeks. So far, he’s posted about his trips to the East: Singapore, North Korea, South Korea, Malaysia, etc…

He states the purpose for his blog–as well as his future plans–in his very first post:

I want this blog to get you thinking–and praying–for the coming spiritual reformation in the world, a reformation not of how we believe but a reformation of what we, as the Church, do.

The whole reformation starts with a new look at the worldwide Church, a global community of millions of local churches around the world. That means God is going to use ordinary people like us to change the world. I’m convinced of it, and I’m going to give the rest of my life to seeing it happen.

He also links to some off-site videos of his trip and gives a brief history of the Church in North Korea. Interestingly, a revival took place there 100 years ago that Pastor Warren referred to as “the greatest manifestation of the Holy Spirit since the days of the Book of Acts.”

Pastor Warren uses TypePad and a basic, 2-column layout for his design. Comments are not available as of right now, and extraneous content is kept to a minimum. And somehow, I don’t think a disclaimer (“the opinions expressed here are not those of…”) is quite appropriate here.

Welcome aboard, Pastor Warren, we look forward to hearing more about your global work.

Hamster wheel gone wrong

I don’t know why, but I thought this was pretty funny. Maybe this heat is just getting to me today, I guess.

40 Days

Forty Days. That’s how long it rained on Noah, and that’s how long Christ spent in the wilderness. I’ve always been intrigued by this number as it was used in the Bible. Why not something more in line with the calendar? Why not six weeks, or even just a single month? Wouldn’t that make more sense in terms of grasping the significance of a given period of time? I’m not a theologian, so you pastor-types out there may have to help me with that one. I do know that the concept of 40 days has been used to a large degree lately, most notably with Rick Warren’s 40 Days of Purpose and his mega-selling Purpose-Driven Life book.

In any case, the forty days in the Bible seemed to be used as a cleansing time and would actually come just before a greater task. For Noah and his family, the raining was over in that amount of time, but they still had several months to wait for the waters to recede. And after that, was the whole business of re-establishing a presence in a new world. For Christ, it meant the prelude to his ministry and subsequent death and resurrection.

I just looked at the calendar. Forty days from today is my school’s first day back for students. That’s a big event in my profession. I need to make some changes between now and then. For too long now, I’ve been thinking about making important health, nutrition, and wellness changes in my life. I always seem to be acquiescing to doing it “tomorrow”, which of course I never get around to. Losing weight, getting more exercise, I’ve just been putting it off for too long now. Time to change.

Today will be Day 1 of a 40-day commitment to improving that part of my life. Start putting into my body only what I can justify being there, and try to kick this caffeine habit that seems to have taken so much control of my mornings. Do more walking. I used to be a 4-sport athlete, for crying out loud! And while I’m at it, I’m going to make some important spiritual changes as well. Maybe I’ll even make Warren’s book a part of the process. I don’t know what bigger task lies ahead of me afterward, but I’ll find out when I get there.

I won’t post about this daily, but I will kind of use this blog as a sort of accountability tool for me, as I know from my web stats that there are several of you out there who check in at least on a weekly basis, if not more often. Doing this “alone”, rather than in a group setting, is a very un-West Coast and un-counselor-like thing for me to do, so I appreciate your comments and support!

VPSI, Day 3

Blogger doesn’t seem to be publishing tonight, so it might be a while before this post actually makes it to the blog. Last full day of VPSI today, I spent all of it learning about passive aggressive students and how to intervene. Good stuff. At some of these sessions, I kind of feel like some of the material has been recycled from somewhere before. Some dude a while back said something about there being nothing new under the sun. Most, if not all, of the information today was new stuff, and very relevant to what we’re doing at school.

Walked through campus this evening and had dinner at my favorite near-campus place, Local Boyz Hawaiian Cafe. Went there with my friend Rob, a fellow Oregon State marching band alum and trombone player, who teaches science in our district. One thing about campus: What a great place to take in some great memories of being a student here. And today was one of those cooler, cloudy days with just a touch of rain, and that just added to the campus atmosphere. Those of you who’ve been here know what I’m talking about.

One more session with Michael Leeds tomorrow, then we’re outta here. Until then, have a great one!

VPSI, Day 2

Started out with a great keynote address by Dr. James Mason, who presented us with some outstanding thoughts about violence prevention and diversity. I had a brief conversation with him just before he left, and he indicated a desire to get out to our part of the state at some point in the near future. I’ll keep you posted.

Pharmacology was the order of the rest of the day for me down here in Corvallis. We were presented with some sobering statistics on drug use in our society. Did you know that, with only 8% of the world’s population, the US uses up 60% of the share of illegal drugs in the world? I didn’t. Here’s one that hits a little closer home to me. Average age that somebody has their first taste of alcohol: 9.5. That’s using it illegally; that’s not including the times somebody has it at communion or at home in the presence of their family. Much of the session centered on violence around drugs and alcohol in a cultural context, as well as the degrees of effectiveness of various interventions. On the agenda for tomorrow: Working with passive aggressive students. Should be another good one.

Social stuff: Had dinner at the Fox and Firkin, a favorite hangout from my graduate school days. It’s downtown, right next to the river, in the “old” part of Corvallis, for you former Oregon Staters out there. One thing that’s great about this conference is getting to know several of the teaching staff in the Hermiston SD. Those connections–as well as the ones I make from outside the district–always come in handy later on.

VPSI, Day 1

All I can say is, Wow, what an incredible first day. Doc Leeds was the keynote speaker, and I also attended his afternoon workshop on experiential group process. This session really resonated with me in that much of my work at school involves helping students identify and analyze their own antisocial behaviors, and then be able to generalize that knowledge to their lives outside of the counseling room. There’s a lot of research and theory behind this kind of psycho-educational group work, and Doc Leeds has done a great job of putting that work into practical applications. If you’ve never had the opportunity to sit in a session with him, I highly recommend it. Professionally, I wanna be like this guy when I grow up. Great evening workshop entitled “Hearts and Minds” which was a great way for professionals to connect and interact. Those of you in the business know the value of that.

Social stuff: Got in last night around 7pm, with my friends and colleagues from the school district. I drove the bus down here, and for some reason I’ve picked up the nickname of “Dad”. Not sure where that came from, but it seems to be sticking. Had dinner at McMenamin’s last night, and at McGrath’s tonight. We’re going to look for some more places that begin with “Mc” to eat at this week. Beautiful day here, spent some time during lunch looking around campus. After a year of completion, I’m still oohing and ahhing at Reser Stadium, which is right across the street from our conference. Took a gander at the bookstore just briefly, and they’ve got Beaver baseball stuff galore there, with signs up that say “New championship gear arriving daily.” Life is good in Corvallis.

That’s about it for now. We’ve been going solid since this morning. I’m rooming with my friend and music teacher colleague Mark Douglass, so I’m thankful for that. One of my sessions for tomorrow got cancelled, so I may take an all day seminar in pharmacology. We’ll see how it goes.

VPSI

This Sunday, I will be traveling to Corvallis, to attend the Violence Prevention Summer Institute on the campus of Oregon State University. This will be my fourth trip to this conference. This is a four-day institute designed primarily for schools and related agencies to teach and promote prosocial behaviors to school-age children. I will be blogging institute content itself over at my professional weblog, but I will also be checking in here for some of the more personal related items. Doctor Michael Leeds will once again be one of the main presenters, and I always go away with some great information from him. This year topics include reactive attachment disorder, working with passive aggressive students, and experiential group process. Of course, not everything down there will be topic-related. Some other things I’m looking forward to:

* July is one fine month to be on campus–temps in the low 90’s, low student population, and some awesome coffee shops and restaurants in the area
* I’m going to raid the bookstore to get as much college baseball championship paraphanelia as I can get my hands on
* Looking up some of my former profs, both in the music and counseling departments

So stay tuned! I may even fire up the ol’ cell phone and tap into AudioBlogger for a remote podcast.