John Wooden is one of the greatest coaches of all time. He led the UCLA Bruins to 664 wins in 27 seasons and hung 10 championship banners. He retired from coaching in 1975, but his work has continued to this day as a world renowned and well respected author, speaker and mentor to many. Today is his 99th Birthday. In honor of his ongoing legacy, here are 9 of the best quotes from the Wizard of Westwood:
“If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not doing anything. I’m positive that a doer makes mistakes.”
“You can’t let praise or criticism get to you. It’s a weakness to get caught up in either one.”
“It’s the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen.”
“Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be.”
“Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.”
“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”
“Material possessions, winning scores, and great reputations are meaningless in the eyes of the Lord, because He knows what we really are and that is all that matters.”
“There are many things that are essential to arriving at true peace of mind, and one of the most important is faith, which cannot be acquired without prayer.”
“I always tried to make clear that basketball is not the ultimate. It is of small importance in comparison to the total life we live. There is only one kind of life that truly wins, and that is the one that places faith in the hands of the Savior. Until that is done, we are on an aimless course that runs in circles and goes nowhere.”
I really need to memorize these… and then live them.
Filed under: Finding God in the Ordinary | Tags: art, church, creativity, faith
Came across this great article today from Collide Magazine from an interview with Donald Miller. I agree with it, do you?
Donald Miller on Artists, Metaphor, and the Church
Scott McClellan – Originally posted Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Photo Credit: Jeremy Cowart Photography
I wrote a feature for our September/October 2009 issue called, “Donald Miller: Storyteller,” in which I discuss an interview I did with Miller and his new book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. In preparing for that interview (conducted at the end of March) I came across a talk Miller gave at Willow Creek’s arts conference, “Creativity and Art, Why You Matter as an Artist.” I was immediately intrigued by what Miller might have to say on the subject, so I asked him about the role of artists in the Church. That section of our conversation didn’t make it into the print article, but I felt compelled to share it with you. Though short, I hope you find it validating and thought-provoking.
COLLIDE: What is your view on the importance of the artist’s role in the Church?
Donald Miller: It’s complicated. I think I’m not convinced the gospel can be arrived at through rational thought. I don’t think much of anything can be arrived at through rational thought that’s of great import. And all of life is performance art. It’s God’s performance art to sort of make poetic grunts back at him and say, “I’m like light, I’m like love, I’m like sheep to shepherd, I’m like king to subject.” Those are dynamics that are created by Him in order to educate us about who He is.
And so God uses art to do that, and so I feel like the Christian artist, like the secular artist, has this opportunity to point to greater truths. And the gospel exists in a realm of greater truth than what we can arrive at with a calculator. Does that make sense?
COLLIDE: Yeah, absolutely. You rattled off a few metaphors there – sheep to shepherd – and it occurs to me that we reduced that to sermon illustrations like, We’re like a precocious kid in Sunday School who said this, and that’s metaphor in large pockets of the Church. But the artist really explores metaphor and narrative far beyond the spoken word.
Miller: Yeah, and if you look at the writings of Moses you have narrative, narrative, and then he breaks into parallelism. He breaks into ancient Hebrew poetry. Job is almost fully a poem. Song of Songs is an opera heavily influenced by Solomon who’s interested in the Orient. You have artwork through the whole thing. I think Revelation is pretty trippy. I don’t know that there are any bullet points in the whole book, are there? There may be a few in building the temple.
COLLIDE: Maybe “Six things the Lord detests,” something like that.
Miller: The Ten Commandments.
COLLIDE: The fruit of the Spirit, maybe. More the exception than the norm, certainly.
Miller: Yeah, exactly, and even the fruit of the Spirit is an artistic metaphor.
So there you have it. To dig deeper into the idea of metaphor in the Bible, I believe Eugene Peterson had some things to say along those lines in his book Eat This Book: The Art of Spiritual Reading. Also, be sure to check out Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. He doesn’t necessarily teach on metaphor, but the book is a brilliant example of its proper use. Finally, check out “Donald Miller: Storyteller” in the September/October 2009 issue of COLLIDE.
Scott McClellan is the editor of COLLIDE. Original Article is here
Filed under: Extraordinary Life | Tags: faith, friends, Israel, life, travel, worship
The trip to Israel was full of so many inspirational and life-changing moments. It’s been nearly two months since I returned from Israel and I feel like the the transformational experiences are still shaping who I am becoming. As promised, I’m recapping some highlights from the trip here on my blog (better late than never). As I try to recall everything, I’m realizing that many of the best memories I have were not so much of all the landmarks and monuments and ancient sites we saw, but of the moments we experienced together as a group.
There was beautifully simple worship sitting next to an ancient olive tree in the Garden of Gethsemane as tears flowed from everyone in the group. There was the indescribable echo you could hear sitting on a bench in the Church of St Anne , where we had an unplanned worship service alongside a group from South Africa. There was the time spent along the edge of the Jordan River where my friend and unofficial rabbi Matt Davis baptized me. There was the other-worldly feeling of floating in the Dead Sea. There was the adventure of climbing down Mt Arbel overlooking the Sea of Galilee and avoiding the horns of a charging, wild mountain cow. There was the Israeli bunker assault lesson from our tour guide Ariel on a hillside just across a valley from the border of Syria. There was the journal of page after page filled with notes as the scripture we studied came to life in a fresh, new way.
I could seriously go on for hours about all of the experiences we had in the two weeks we spent there. Rather than bore you though, I’ve put up a gallery of a few of my favorite photos from the trip. I hope they give you a small glimpse into what Israel is like…
I’m leaving on a jet plane tomorrow for the Holy Land – direct flight from LA to Tel Aviv. I’m totally packed, but still not feeling that ready to go. It’s hard to disconnect from the pattern and the pace of life. More than that, it’s a little scary as there are so many unknowns involved. I honestly don’t know what to expect from this trip. I’m just trying to remain open to whatever adventures comes our way.
I know that I should be excited and feel blessed to have this opportunity. I do feel that in spurts. But I also know that I’m feeling a little sad as I’m going to miss my beautiful wife and also the birth of our niece. On top of that, I have to admit that I also feel disoriented, nervous, and a little stressed. I know that I will be challenged. I trust that I will be inspired. I pray that we will all be safe. I hope that I will grow closer to God and my fellow travelers as we walk the land where the Bible happened.
If you’d like to follow our journey through Israel – check out the Calvary Israel Blog
I’ve been thinking over the past couple weeks about resolutions for 2009 and one of the things that keeps coming back to me is to have an adventurous spirit. Sure, there are the usual things like lose weight, learn to play the guitar, etc. But a reoccurring desire that seems to be at the front of my mind is the idea of being truly adventurous. Be willing to take risks. Do things that I’ve never done before. Step out of my comfort zone.
Last weekend, we went to a wedding reception at a Chinese seafood restaurant. It was really incredible with a full 10 course meal. About 8 of the courses scared me. Several of the dishes still had eyes on them. Yet, I tried them all including the shark fin soup with crab.
Today, I’m leaving for Las Vegas to a WordPress conference. No, it’s not for my little corner of the blog world, it’s for work and what we’re hoping to do with Calvary’s website this year. While there, I hope that I can have the courage to meet new people and learn new things.
I may have the opportunity to go to Israel this spring. I hope that if I can find the money to go (I’ll gladly except gifts or donations of any sort…) I want to have the guts while there to do once-in-a-lifetime kinds of things.
I’ve been doing a lot more reading lately than normal. Both the Bible and some amazing books on topics of prayer, the Holy Spirit and more. These books have been challenging my faith and stretching my ideas. I think reading thought provoking books fits well with my resolutions for the new year.
I feel like there will be many chances in the coming months to have an adventurous spirit and find the extra in the ordinary. I hope I have the courage to step into those moments and opportunities boldly.
I can’t believe it’s almost Christmas. Wasn’t it just thanksgiving? Do you feel like this? I feel like I’ve been so busy keeping up with life that Christmas has blind-sided me. It actually reminds me a lot of the story of Jesus’ birth in the book of Luke.
There was so much going on in the world and people were dealing with a lot of things – oppression from the government, the hassle of a census, finding available hotel rooms, keeping track of family and friends, spending time at religious activities, following a celestial phenomenon in the night sky, or just keeping watch over their flocks. Meanwhile, God decides the timing is perfect to interrupt the already full storyline and throws the plot into a totally different direction. Some people were able to keep track of all the foreshadowing and saw it coming (Anna, Simeon, Magi). Others were caught completely off guard and were pretty freaked out by it (Shepherds, Joseph and Mary).
How has God invaded your story? Did you see it coming? I feel like my life has a lot of plot-related tension in it right now. I pray that in the week ahead, I can take a step back and refocus on the bigger picture and avoid getting so caught up in the details and distractions. I hope God has some plot twists in store for me, I could use a little change in the narrative.
I went this afternoon to put something in the shared fridge at Calvary we have in the video studio. It’s just a little black mini fridge. The odor that emanated from it was anything but mini.
I foolishly decided to figure out what in the fridge was giving off the stench. I pulled out the first, and most obvious, cause – a thing of hummus dip. It was about a month past its expiration and had a slight odor. I then went to the gorgonzola, walnut salad – a slightly stronger smell and equally past its prime sell-by date. The string cheese on the middle shelf expired back in October, but it didn’t smell due to the air tight packaging.
The real culprit I could now tell was on the bottom, on a shelf long ignored and forgotten. I picked up the small bottle of Naked Apple Juice,which expired in September, and even through its packaging could smell a funk slowly seeping through. The last item left in the fridge was an innocuous looking plastic bag. It was wrapped up around a block of some sort. I unwrapped the bag, opened it and almost died. There were slices of muenster cheese that had gone completely rancid. It was now a fuzzy black and white cheese that made my eyes instantly water and the entire room quickly filled with it’s essence. It was the kind of monstrous smell that knocks you backwards, collapses your lungs and gives you hallucinogenic visions. Seriously, it was that bad.
So, lessons learned…. First of all, the people I work with like some already stinky food. When it’s allowed to go months past its expiration date, it just becomes even stinkier. The other thing this made me think of is sin. It seems enticing at first. We let it into our fridge/hearts because we think we’ll like it. But, we let it fester and rot unchecked. Days, weeks, even months go by and we finally examine our lives only to find that it’s odor has escaped into every bit of our lives. It’s contaminated everything. The only thing we can do at that point is clean it all out and start fresh. I love David’s words in Psalm 57.
Purify me from my sins,and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Oh, give me back my joy again;
you have broken me—
now let me rejoice.
Don’t keep looking at my sins.
Remove the stain of my guilt.
Create in me a clean heart, O God.
Renew a loyal spirit within me.
Do not banish me from your presence,
and don’t take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and make me willing to obey you.
Filed under: Ordinary Life | Tags: Calvary, faith, Family, friends, Leslie, life
This past Sunday in my LifeGroup, we were discussing chapter 2 of Henri Nouwen’s book “Here and Now” on the topic of joy, especially in the midst of sorrow. It was such a perfect topic for my own life and many in our group. It was also really meaningful with Thanksgiving being this week. I’m so thankful for this group of fellow believers. In the short time we’ve been meeting together, I can feel God at work and can’t wait to see what growth comes from our time spent studying and praying together.
This week at Calvary, we decided to create a little twist to the traditional thanksgiving testimony service we have each year. We had people share a passage of scripture they were thankful for and how that verse has impacted their life. It was incredible this morning to hear the common thread of hope from God’s word woven into the trials and challenges of so many people’s lives. From miraculous healing and God’s faithful provision to conquered addictions and restored relationships – I find myself just thankful that I get to work at a church where God is still moving and lives are being changed.
I feel like for Lesie and I, the past year has been a lot of waiting on God to come through. There’s been a lot of trust, and as we’ve found blessings along the path – there have been just as many trials that have stretched our faith and in turn drawn us closer to each other and to the Lord. I am extraordinarily thankful for my beautiful wife and the fact that I get to share my life with her.
Finally, here’s a pretty obscure passage I found when I was prepping for the LifeGroup time last Sunday. I’m thankful for the promises and hope we find in His word.
Habakkuk 3:17-19
17 Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
18 yet I will rejoice in the LORD;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
19 GOD, the Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet like the deer’s;
he makes me tread on my high places.
Even when times are hard and there aren’t many signs of good times ahead, we can choose to give thanks and rejoice because of who God is. He provides the firm foundation we need to stand on and He gives us the strength we need to make it.
I hope you can find much to be joyful about this Thanksgiving.
It’s mid November and it feels like the hottest it’s been all year. The heat has helped fuel the devastating fires that have ripped through Southern California. Over the weekend, the ominous smoke was so high and so thick – it blanketed the sky and blocked out the sun. Even today, with the constant, lingering smell of smoke and fluttering remnants of ash littering the ground, there is a constant reminder that the fire is still raging.
Then, I found out yesterday that this week was scheduled for a major air conditioning repair in Calvary’s Worship Center. Normally, mid November would be a perfectly planned time to pull off this type of repair. With the unusual heat, the fact that there will be zero chilled water available to cool the offices during the day has greatly raised my appreciation for the modern-day wonder of AC. This is because, while I am blessed to have a great office with a big window – that window faces South and by 10:30 this morning my office was unbearable. I wound up working from home in the afternoon.
Tonight, Leslie and I headed to the gym around 8pm. It’s usually not crowded this time of night. With all of the heat and smoke still in the air, many people who may normally be out jogging were all in the gym. It was packed with people trying to stay out of the heat and protect their lungs from the smoke.
All of this got me thinking about Hell. Luke 16:19-31 gives us a little insight into what the life after this will hold and how the decisions we make now affect our eternity. In the Bible, Hell is described as a place of darkness, fire, separation and torment. The good news is God has offered a way to stay out of the heat. It’s not through the relief of air conditioning, it’s not through the shift of an off-shore breeze, it’s not even through the courageous efforts of fire fighters. It is through believing in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, making Him the Lord of our life, that our sins are forgiven and our relationship with God is restored. I am so thankful that God has provided us such an accessible escape route.
Filed under: Finding God in the Ordinary | Tags: basketball, biola, Calvary, church, faith, Family, friends, Leslie, life, politics, prayer, work
Life is happening so fast. I’m struggling to keep up. This should really be seven different posts, but I want to catalog all my thoughts from this week in one place.
Sunday – Struggled as two of my main tech guys were late for sound check. Struggled as a couple of important media elements had to be adjusted at the last second before the first service started. Jumped in to help serve communion after an amazing message by Brent Dedmon during second service. Got to celebrate my brother’s birthday over a great lunch that afternoon.
Monday – Did devotionals for a group at Calvary called God’s Housecare. They are a group of retired guys who get together each week and help clean the Worship Center. After cleaning they gather around coffee and donuts and hear from one of the pastors on staff. I talked about the sovereignty of God in light of the then upcoming elections. It was fun getting into of God and politics with guys older than my dad. They were surprisingly balanced and wise.
Tuesday – Heard from Dr. JP Moreland and Dr Klaus Issler from Talbot School of Theology. They met with Calvary’s pastors and directors to talk about things like modern-day miracles, gifts of the Spirit, prophetic words, the voice of God, demonic activity, spiritual warfare and the power of prayer. How do we avoid the trap of having a rational, limited and contained view of God that fits so neatly within our modern, Western, linear worldview, and instead carry out a faith as “empowered evangelicals” willing to take risks and be open to how God is moving in miraculous ways not just around the world – but also within our own church? Followed that faith-stirring time on a completely different note with an amazing time of Pizza, Wii and Rock Band with the whole staff. Made it home in time for my friend Marty the plumber to fix my leaking toilet. He’s a really good guy. Then, watched history unfold that evening as the results of the election were announced.
Wednesday – Packed up our stuff so our home could be tented for termites. It was strange to wrap up our food in plastic, hand over our keys to strangers, and trust that everything would be okay while they killed the bugs lurking in our walls. Had a really long day at work, full of meetings. But, it was fun to celebrate my good friend Tammy’s birthday with my communications staff during our regular Wednesday meeting. Leslie and I were able to check in to a brand new hotel that night, Worldmark by Wyndham in Anaheim. It’s a timeshare resort that my dad has points for. It’s only been open for a week. Strange to feel like a tourist in your own backyard.
Thursday – Took advantage of hotel living and used the fitness room in the morning. Had the place all to myself for the most part. Had a great time later that night with my sister and parents at Cheesecake Factory, which was right across the street from the hotel. They have a new pumpkin cheesecake – good thing I had worked out that morning.
Friday – Checked out of the hotel and went with Leslie for a surgery she needed to have done. The surgery went well, but as she woke up from the anesthesia she was hit with a massive migraine. Was able to get her home just in time for the gas guy to come by and reconnect our gas. He was able to fix a leak in our furnace and discovered a problem with the ventilation of our dryer that I was able to fix on my own. Two hugely dangerous problems solved. Got to head out that night with my friend Michael to Westwood to watch some hoops with our alma mater, the BIOLA Eagles, take on the Bruins of UCLA. We lost by about 30, but it was still fun to see Biola represent at Pauley Pavillion.
Saturday - Was woken up by a ringing telephone – that’s almost never a good thing. Leslie’s mom was in the emergency room. Turns out she had three heart attacks this week because of a clogged artery, but didn’t realize they were heart attacks. On our way to the hospital in Whittier I was pulled over for speeding and despite the plea of a medical emergency – the officer still took about five minutes and still gave me a ticket. I’m still not over that. Leslie’s mom seems to be doing better now with a couple stints inserted. They’re keeping her there for a couple nights to monitor everything.
That’s the week that was. It feels like with every blessing, comes a trial. It feels like the closer I am to God, the harder life gets. Or, is it the other way around? I can’t tell. I know that He is at work in both the seemingly ordinary and in the obviously extraordinary moments of life. I’ll keep believing and trusting and praising Him through it all. And even as I feel like I’m constantly falling short, I know that God is constantly lifting me up. Life is happening so fast. I hope I can keep up.
