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July 29, 2010

If Pregnancy Were a Baseball Game…

If pregnancy were a nine-inning affair as opposed to a nine-month affair, we’d be stretching our legs about to start the top of the ninth.

I am at best a utility infielder when it comes to pregnancy. You can expect me to make one or two great plays, heading off a craving at midnight with a Wendy’s single, or pulling a 6-4-3 double play and also tackling taking out the garbage at the same time. I’m not gonna make the All Star team, but I’m gonna give you a solid game every night, and take my paycheck without causing any drama in the locker room.

The coach just put me in as the closing pitcher. He called the bullpen, and the guy from the bullpen ran out to shortstop to tell me to take the mound.

Jacqueline has been put back on orders to rest (low–but not critically–amniotic fluid) for at least 2 hours at a time, two to three times per day.

I am on kid detail, and expected to hold the lead we’ve got going into the ninth. We called up a veteran (my mom) who hasn’t been out of the game for too long, and she’s in town helping.

Pray for us, as we have to simultaneously continue to work toward being fully funded in ministry, and toward being fully prepared for boy #2, and toward keeping Jacqueline off of her feet (which involves me changing the diapers, cooking the food, doing the laundry, and everything else–whenever mom isn’t in town). And we’ve got to do all of this with our boisterous two-year-old.

And I’ve gotta work on my change-up. Never been good at the off-speed stuff.

August 4, 2010August 3, 2010

Lay in the Floor. Laugh at the Wall.

My son likes to mess with the spring-style door stop on the wall between our rooms when he gets up in the morning. It’s near the top of his to-do list every day.

6:35 AM: “boinggg. boyoiinng…. boyoyoyoing.”

It helps me to remember that no matter how hard, messy, and difficult life is–he’s concerned about the neat noise that door stop makes. And I think he’s onto something. Life is stressful, MPD is difficult. But God wants me to lay my head down beside LB on the carpet, and be amazed by the sound of a door stop. I can’t think of a better use of my time.

When’s the last time you stopped to make funny noises with a door stop? That big problem will wait. In fact, in light of the joy you find laying in the floor with a toddler laughing at the wall, those big problems don’t seem so big anymore.

August 6, 2010August 6, 2010

We’re Leaving Staff.

Jacqueline had just found out we were pregnant with LB a few months earlier. Then it happened. Due probably to a combination of poor communication and wishful thinking on our part, some folks who we thought were going to give a total of $10,000 in the month of October, 2007 ended up giving us a couple of emails saying they weren’t able to give. That 10 grand amounted to $7500 in annual support, or $625 per month. For perspective, in a healthy economy, it takes on average one week to raise $100 per month. So we were put 6 weeks in the hole, in a matter of days.

We have spent the last three years trying to recover from that month. Instead of recovering, we have consistently continued to lose financial support. We’ve raised much over that time, to be sure. Just this past year of raising support full-time has seen more than $1,000 in monthly support come in. But over the same time, we’ve lost about $1,300 per month. We’ve worked extremely hard, prayed harder, and given it the best shot we can imagine.

So, when I say we are leaving, I don’t mean that we are leaving with our head hanging down or our metaphorical tail between our legs. That’d indicate we don’t believe in a sovereign God, or that we think we didn’t work hard enough. And neither of those is true. After much prayer and involving more than a few tears (even some tears by Ben in public coffee shops, thanks to Neale Davis), we’re moving on.

We’ll miss being on staff. It is still sinking in that we won’t be at the conferences, seeing our dear staff friends. The last time I went to a New Years Eve party that wasn’t at a CCC conference was 1997. Well, since they shortened the conference thanks to the Y2K scare, I think I technically partied like it was 1999 in a non-CCC fashion–but you get my point.

Check out the two updated links above “Give” and “CCC” (same text in both, now) in the top bar for details about giving. Please don’t just stop giving. Read that first. We love you all.

More clarifying posts to come. And Im looking for a job, if you’re into worship music/tech/social media/good at making coffee type people. Holler at me.

August 15, 2010

The Funniest Thing Our Son has Accomplished.

My son will never make Last Comic Standing (though with Felipe Esparza winning the whole thing, maybe he should. Team Johnagin all the way.) His latest act is sort of the opposite of “stand up,” but still pretty hilarious. Enjoy. (video embedded, in case you are all up in a feed reader at the moment.)

August 16, 2010August 16, 2010

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I’ve just rounded the corner out of my third decade, and I’ve hit a strange crisis. Up until this point I’ve always known what I want to be when I grow up: a missionary. I want to get paid to share the gospel. The gospel is preeminent, foundational. The paycheck has always been secondary.

So it’s tough to think in terms of benefits and 401-K, as I have been looking out at my options going forward.

I feel pretty marketable in church circles, in that I am a worship leader who is also a bit of a tech guy/jack of most trades. I can fix the wireless network and code the websites and help streamline interoffice communications, in addition to leading the music on Sunday mornings. So, I’m not really concerned about being able to land a job somewhere in churchland.

But I just quit my dream job, and most of the places I’m looking at now are either part-time or not in my dream situation (denominational/theological differences that would likely become an issue, need for a Masters degree of some sort, etc) and so here I am at a crossroad. I am not going to jump at the first ministry job out there, just for a paycheck. I’d rather work at Starbucks or Harris Teeter while I wait on my dream situation than to get roped in to a less-than-ideal vocational ministry situation.

Which leads me to the same question I faced as a 3rd grader: what I want to be when I grow up. Back then I said I’d like to be an artist when i grow up. I didn’t miss it by far. My 3rd grade heart knew that ultimately, I want to be creative. 22 years later, I now can confidently say that I not only want to be an artist, I want to be an artist who is focused on creating, because I serve a creative God. My heart can’t help but to image and promote the creative heart of God.

So now I just have to figure out a way to monetize that. In the meantime, I’ve put in some applications at various spots, like selling cell phones (let’s face it, I am always talking about iPhones and Android phones anyway, I might as well get paid to sell them…). I am very excited for the next step, and interested to see how tossing a new baby into this mix will affect things (I’ll let you know in a week and a half).

Bottom line, if I show up at your door toting a Papa John’s box, you’d better tip well.