This week has been crazier than most in the Young household, and I’m ready for it to be over. My wife and I have been packing in every waking moment that we have and we are both at wits end. Even my son Reed, who is normally very mild mannered, has been stretched to his breaking point. He’s been irritable, moody, and constantly on the edge of a breakdown. He can really sense that we are on edge about something. Then, last night it rained.

Now I’m not talking about a little pitter patter of rain or a huge gusting storm. I’m talking about perfectly rhythmic, quiet and soothing, gently flowing, put-you-to-sleep rain. And that’s exactly what it did. We all slept better than we had all week.

I guess my point is that we all know that there are going to be those weeks when life is going to get the best of us and really stress us out, but if we don’t have something to calm us down and bring us down a notch then we are walking a dangerous line. Search for those things that bring you comfort and joy and hide in them when you are at your wits end.

In case you haven’t heard, good ol’ Jack Kevorkian has entered the congressional race in Southfield, Michigan. Yep, just when you thought politics couldn’t get any worse, it does. In case you aren’t familiar with Jack, he helped over 130 patients commit suicide as a pathologist and is only 10 months removed from serving a 10 year sentence for second degree murder!

Jack isn’t your average politician who lobbies for changes in the economy and a better tomorrow. He admittedly has only voted ONCE in his lifetime, and that was when a friend of his was running for governor 1998. It seems his only slant is to expose what he calls a “corrupt” government. His main argument is, you guessed it, that people have the right to choose when they die, just like they have the right to choose whether or not they want to wear a seat belt in a car.

As crazy as that sounds I wouldn’t worry too much about it. The guy is broke, and does not plan to try and raise campaign money. He plans to get out and do face-to-face rallies with the people in the voting area. He also has to collect a minimum of 3,000 signatures by July 17 to have his name even put on the ballot.

It seems like Dr. Jack is hell-bent on having people hear and agree with what he considers to be truth. And while I TOTALLY DISAGREE with him on EVERYTHING he is pushing I wish I could mirror his dedication.

I wish I could be as dedicated to the REAL TRUTH that God has given me as Kevorkian is to the self-proclaimed truth that he has adopted. That kind of dedication gets people talking.

I know that’s a risky parallel, but that’s truly what I thought when I first heard this story. This country needs to hear the real truth more now than even and we need to be the people who dedicate ourselves to telling it. No matter what the cost.

I have just recently started to read a new book entitled Simple Church (you can get more info on this book on the sidebar to your right). I have been really struck by how similar our philosophy and approach at Horizon is to the models they are preaching in this book. It’s really exciting to me to know that the simplicity of our approach will allow people to more easily follow the plan of discipleship we have set up for them to follow. I don’t want to go into much more detail, but I do want to echo these simple truths from the book that I think are “golden nuggets” for all church leaders.

Jesus came to this earth and to offer a faith that was easy to understand, simple to grasp, but hard to follow. Don’t put unnecessary pressure on seekers by making your church models hard to understand and follow. Preach God’s love and grace in simplicity and it will change your ministry forever.

The past few weeks in Louisville have been anything but typical as far as weather goes. Last week we had a foot and a half of snow that made it impossible to do anything, and this week it has been so sunny and warm that I have ridden my motorcycle to work every day. I am just amazed at the difference a week can make. Personally, I pretty much hate the snow. There are times when it is fun and not annoying, but for me those times are few and far between. I love warm weather that allows me to be outside enjoying the day.

I think there are many people who share my feelings about this when it comes to weather, but it’s scary to think that those same people also have these feelings about life, church, and their friendships. Sure they love things when the sun is shining and things are dandy, but the minute something bad pops up they drop all communication, all involvement, and all interest.

On a separate but related note, my wife and I were discussing how we would handle the future discipline of our child last night and on things that both of us agreed on is that we want to raise our child with an emphasis on not just his actions, but also his attitude. If he does what he is supposed to it simply won’t be good enough. He will be expected to maintain the proper attitude while doing right. I firmly believe that this has been missing from American households for far too long. Our society places more stock in actions than attitudes.

This is the last things I’ll say: even when things in life stink; when your friends are acting like jerks, when your spouse is annoying, and nothing seems to go right don’t shut down or isolate yourself from those things. Meet them head on. There’s always warmer weather on its way.

Well, as of last week, we are officially moving, AGAIN! But, because we have a kid, this time is different. I’m not very astute in procedures, but my wife says this is not an acceptable way to move your child.

DISCLAIMER: In case you can’t tell this is a satirical post. Don’t be the freak who thinks I’m serious and tries to report me to child protective services because I put my kid in a box. Nuff’ said.

In case you haven’t noticed my blog is now operating under a new URL. The new home of my blog is joelyoungblog.com, but never fear because joelyoungmusic.com will still redirect you to here. However, if you have my site bookmarked or linked and you could make the appropriate changes I would appreciate it. Hope you’re not to freaked out by the new banner.

I think we’ve all heard the saying, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” But, after today I know that just isn’t true because today my family and I ran some errands over lunch at our neighborhood Costco. I was already hungry when we got there and so I bought a fountain drink for 55 cents to tide me over, but before I knew it I had already eaten lunch! There was a wide variety of free samples all around me, and the kind distributors were constantly reminding me that I could have as much as I wanted. How cool is that! My wife was in awe as I tried each and every sample without hesitation. She was amazed that a very picky eater like myself would shove any free sample that I came by into my mouth without hesitation. I guess that truly attests to my true nature of “good stewardship”. I’d rather eat food I don’t like for free than pay for something I like.

After the whole experience was over I thought to myself, “What can the church learn from Costco?” This is a tactic I have seen Mike use a lot with Starbucks.

I think the one truth that rings through is that people appreciate it when you pay attention to them. Costco doesn’t have to offer 55 cent fountain drinks or an endless supply of free samples to sell their wholesale products, but they do those things anyway. These things enhance what they offer. Now, while I don’t think we should view the church as a store and church-goers as consumers, I do think that the church sometimes loses sight of the fact that people love it when we go the extra mile to enhance things.

When we are courteous enough to have someone escort them from their car to the door on a rainy Sunday.

When we have someone waiting at that door to help them find a seat.

When the worship service engages and involves each person in the congregation and spurs them on to live a more disciplined life for Christ.

Sure, we have the best product in the world, even better than the stuff they sell at Costco, and the message of God’s love and grace needs no real enhancement to be amazing. But I still think it’s okay to give people more than just the message at our churches. It’s okay to put extra effort in making sure that every little detail is taken care of so that people can more easily see God through what we do. In fact, it’s more than okay. It’s awesome when churches do that, and I know God appreciates the effort we put forth to communicate His Gospel to the world.

I know for years people have assumed that Microsoft was the computer and software leader, but it seems that is recent years Apple has become king of the mountain. With their easy-to-use macs and ipods, and even easier-to-use programing they have gained mass popularity. I myself even have a 30 GB ipod where I store all of my music. It’s really convenient and I have been using it for about 3 years now, but yesterday I learned about a new and more attractive system through Microsoft. There is a website called spiralfrog.com where you can download over 800,000 songs for FREE, and it’s LEGAL! The only catch is, you can’t burn them to a CD or your ipod. You can only listen to them in windows media player on your computer, or transfer them to your approved Microsoft portable device. So, since I listen to music all day at work on my computer and my Motoroa Q is one of those approved devices I decided to give it a try.

Surprisingly, I have found the system very convenient and easy to use. I have a 2GB capacity on my phone and that holds a decent amount of songs since they are on average only 3-4MB. Plus, the new Windows Media Player 11 is very intuitive and has a nice layout. Dare I say that it performs a little better than itunes? SprialFrog.com doesn’t have all the songs in the world and it takes them a little while to get new albums, but it seems like a decent service. After all, it is free.

Maybe the answer to the age old question PC or MAC isn’t so black and white anymore.

Well, after less than 2 weeks on the market and a parade of interest my wife and I accepted a contract on our home last night. We were pretty confident that the house would sell quickly since we had put a lot of effort into fixing it up, but we never expected this. More than how fast it sold we were blown away by how much it sold for. The housing market is really down right now, and we still managed to sell our house for 5% more than our asking price! To me this is yet another piece of the puzzle that God is putting together to make Horizon Christian Church a reality. I get more excited every day! Thanks to all the people who have been praying for our transition because this is a huge victory for us.