Golby Wedding

Recently I had the honor of shooting the wedding of two of my friends, Aaron and Katie (Brobeck) Golby. It was such a privilege to be asked to document such an important day for them. I am so excited to see what God will do in and through their marriage.








































Congratulations, Aaron and Katie!

Skipping adolescense

Right on, Pastor Mark.

Season's Grievances

I'm sick and tired of all this politically correct "we'll say 'happy holidays' just in case some whiner is miffed because we don't know what he or she believes" crap. That's what it is. It's crap. I'm sick of department stores, restaurants, school choir programs and, well, just about everything being forced into a generic "Season's Greetings, Happy Holidays but by absolutely no means Merry Christmas" way of operating.

I have several issues with all of this, some of which I will begin to address.

1) Whininess=suckiness. For some reason, America is terrified of whiny people. CEOs to superintendents are afraid- and not because someone may be offended, but because they don't want to see any negative publicity coming from the mouth of a thin-skinned, thick-headed moron. Why do we give so much significance to the views of these people, who I argue are really the insensitive ones?

2) Why should someone be offended by my wishing them a Merry Christmas? If someone wished me a Happy Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, whatever- who cares? I don't celebrate those things, but "Hey, thanks for wishing me happiness."

3) The First Amendment is on my side, so a big, fat, "na na na na na, get over yourselves" to the whiners.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

Now, store/restaurant/business policies are certainly different than a Congress-created law, so they REALLY don't have anything to worry about. They'll never lose a lawsuit brought against them for wishing someone a Merry Christmas.

School programs, yes, are a different story. As public institutions, legally they do have to be more careful. An arm of the government cannot establish a religion. For example's sake, I'll use a school choir concert; all the time you hear about school concerts being so watered down that they sing "Chicken Fat" instead of "Jingle Bells." No, not kidding. Now, students should not be forced to sing songs that they have religious differences with. I cannot expect a muslim student to want to sing about Jesus Christ any more than I would want to sing about Mohammed. But think about all the times there must have been when content has been censored even though there wasn't even an issue. Furthermore, the way the First Amendment is written, we are given a positive freedom- that is, we have a freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. In this country, no matter what your faith is, you have the right to practice it freely. Unfortunately, because some people are oversensitive, Christmas is becoming taboo and we don't get to exercise our faith freely.

Thankfully, we can have peace knowing that one day we'll all really understand what it means that God came to earth as a baby to bring salvation to all who call on Him.

Reflecting on our blessing

In Luke 24, just before Jesus ascends into heaven, it says that He was blessing the Eleven apostles and those with them, promising to send them the Holy Spirit.

Luke also wrote the book of Acts and gives more detail of what Jesus said in this blessing. Acts 1:8 says "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

It is a blessing to be a witness to all people, to the ends of the earth. This is to be understood differently than a commandment. Instead of saying just "Do this," Jesus is saying "You get to do this. This is a privilege, a blessing."

We are blessed as members of the body of Christ. We were bought with blood and are now blessed to be witnesses to Christ.

A fun bathroom

The Dead Schembechlers have a song titled "I Peed in Ann Arbor's Water Supply."

Using the bathroom at Quaker Steak & Lube in Mentor, Ohio was reminiscent of that.

I might be a marketing genius

A couple months ago I wrote a post about what I thought was an embarrassing example of grasping for words while I was filmed for a commercial for Best of Athens Rentals has turned out to be an excellent marketing line.

I said that it was a "pure joy" to rent from Best of Athens.

Look at McDonald's new line:

The inconvenience of a life

I recently saw a video from a CNN interview with a businesswoman from Wisconsin. She, on September 21st, tweeted "I'm in a board meeting. Having a miscarriage. Thank goodness, because there's a f***ed-up 3-week hoop-jump to have an abortion in Wisconsin."

If the tweet wasn't troubling enough, the interview was even worse.

Rick Sanchez, of CNN asked the woman "Have you no shame?!?" and asked why she felt it was a good idea to "air her dirty laundry" like that. She began talking about her miscarriage and said that 75% of women have miscarriages, so it's really a part of the female experience. I'm not sure why she went to her miscarriage as her dirty laundry, but a miscarriage is not something to be ashamed of. It's something to be mournful of, but not ashamed.

As the interview continued, I became even more perplexed. A question revealed that the woman is a mother of two- and I believe that she loves her kids. In between the two kids she had a miscarriage and said "It was really terrible. I was very sad because I wanted another kid." She used to value the life of a human being- when it was convenient for her.

When it was convenient for her. This is where it really gets me. She was relieved to have a miscarriage this time because she didn't want to have to drive down to Chicago to have an abortion. It would be an inconvenience to end her pregnancy and the life of her unborn child. A human life was an inconvenience to her.

Can you imagine if we took similar action to what this woman presumably would have done every time a human being inconvenienced us? This side of the womb that's called murder.

She said she has had an abortion before and that it was very difficult physically, emotionally and on her relationships, yet she takes it so lightly that she would do it again. She said it's hard because there is a desire to keep the baby, but blames that on hormones. Rick Sanchez countered that with asking if maybe she thought those hormones were "God's way of telling you 'this is yours and you shouldn't give it up.'"

Right on with that one, Rick. Of course it is! We are made in God's image and feelings like that prove it! If He uses hormones to influence those feelings, He made us that way and what is that to us?!? That woman's baby was a person, made in the image of God and God wants us to feel that.

It's something to mourn when a miscarriage happens; it's something to hate an abortion when it is performed. (Note: Hate the abortion, not the abort-er.) My heart breaks for this woman, and all women who don't want to deal with the inconvenience of a pregnancy and choose to end the life of their children. I can't imagine what it will be like on the day when she and so many others are really awakened to the evil of abortion. I can't imagine that heartache.

But the good news is there is a God who will have compassion on these babies, when their moms consider them inconveniences and throw them away. The Mark Driscoll video below is, I think, pretty powerful. He shares this good news toward the end of the clip.