Jordan Rippy

Here’s the deal. I know some of you don’t like these book reviews, but you need to realize that I think it’s great when you chime in and we discuss them, but ultimately these reviews are for me. The blog is a great way for me to track my yearly reading and to be able to review some of the content. With that, I just read Blue Like Jazz. Honestly, I thought it was great but I feel like it didn’t quite live up to some of it’s press. Miller is a great and relatable writer and I totally resonated with what he had to say.

• “Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself.”
• “I believe that the greatest trick of the devil is not to get us into some sort of evil but rather have us wasting time.”
• “Nothing is going to change in the Congo until you and I figure out what is wrong with the person in the mirror.”
• Coming to know that Jesus is God is not like doing math.
• “Light cannot be proved scientifically, and yet we all believe in light and by light see all things.”
• Chess players go crazy, not poets.
• “I love to give to charity, but I don’t want to be charity.”
• “It’s not that I want to earn my own way to give something to God, it’s that I want to earn my own way so I won’t be charity.”
• “Passion is tricky, though, because it can point to nothing just as easily as it points to something.”
• Christian spirituality is a nonpolitical mysterious system that can be experienced but not explained.
• “There was room at the table for me, but I wasn’t in the family.”
• “It took me a while to understand that the answer to problems was not marketing or program but rather spirituality.”
• “I want to marry a girl who, when I am with her, makes me feel alone.”
• “I think our society puts too much pressure on romantic love, and that is why so many romances fail.”
• “I am that cordless screwdriver that has to charge for twenty four hours to earn ten minutes use.”
• “Jesus wants us interacting, eating together, laughing together, praying together.”
• “When you live on your own for years, you begin to think the world belongs to you. You begin to think all space is your space and all time is your time.”
• “There is no addiction so powerful as self-addiction.”
• “It was the affection of Christ, not the brutality of a town, that healed Zacchaeus.”
• “All the wonder of God appens right above our arithmetic and formula.”
• “If we could, God would not inspire awe.”
• “I think we have two choices in the face of beauty: terror or awe.”
• “We are too proud to feel awe and to fearful to feel terror.”
• “I don’t think there is any better worship than wonder.”
• “I was tired of Biblical ethic being used as a tool to judge people rather than heal them.”
• “God has never withheld love to teach m a lesson.”
• “Everything rests in the ability to receive love.”

Kristin and I are moving across town in a couple of weeks. More on the new place later. In the mean time we’ve been refinishing some furniture. You may remember our amazing coffee table which we refinished late last year. For the end table we went for a shabby -chic look inspired by these Pottery Barn tables. Here’s the finished product:

Before / After

Saturday Kristin and I headed over to Palatka for the Green Family staycation…You may be wondering what a staycation is. It’s when everyone takes a vacation together but doesn’t really go anywhere. Anyway, it was nice because we have two new nephews (Kristin’s sister is adopting) that we got to meet for the first time. I would like for you to note the striking resemblance between Kayden and Kiefer Sutherland.

Kayden also enjoys breaking protocol…Just like Jack Bauer. Anyway, the little look-alike wasn’t the only entertainment for the weekend. We also had the Blue Monster and the Aqua Tunnel. Two giant inflatable water slides.

We also played a rousing round of “Family Feud”. My team lost but I’m almost positive it was rigged. Highlight of the trip for me was when I pulled my mother in-law, sister-in-law, brother-in-law, cousin-in-law, and wife in the pool. A wave of strength came over me and I simply couldn’t be stopped. Not even by the impenetrable wall of a human being that is our cousin Lenon. The staycation was a huge success. And as you can see…Kristin and I finally got another camera which means good things for the blog.

Me and Kristin during Family Feud

Many of you may remember one of my most renowned posts about a frog getting loose in our house. Well, we’ve had another green critter enjoying the comfort of our home. This one managed to live in our humble abode for several days. That’s right. Several days.

So a couple of days ago I see this tiny (unbelievably small) lizard crawling down our hallway. I tell Kristin to grab a cup for me to catch it with. In the mean time, this crazy thing gets wind of what’s going on and takes off into our closet. I track him for all of about two seconds and then me and Kristin decide it’s a lost cause for the time being.

Fast forward to tonight. I happen to see the little guy out of my peripheral vision in the general area of the last encounter. This time he’s extremely still and in a vulnerable position. Again, Kristin grabs a cup and tosses it to me. After a brief chase I’m able to secure him in the cup. Then I released him outside. It was truly the excitement of the evening.

***UPDATE: By reviewing the photos, I realized there was a discrepancy in the color of the two cups. After running back through the evening’s events in my head I remembered that the chase involved both Kristin and I, and it was actually my wife who was able to trap him. I then slid the paper underneath and released him.

Crouched for the attack

Observing my catch

The beast

On the way home from New York I read The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. Inspiring. For those of you who don’t know, Randy Pausch is a college professor who recently found out that he only has three to six months of good health due to pancreatic cancer. This book recaps his last lecture on “How to Achieve Childhood Dreams”. I highly recommend this book. It’s an extremely read. If you’re not a big reader, at least check out the video of Randy’s lecture.

• “When you’re screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore, that means they’ve given up on you.”
• “The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something.”
• “Sometimes the most impenetrable brick walls are made of flesh.”
• “I know you’re smart. But everyone here is smart. Smart isn’t enough. The kind of people I want on my research team are those who will help everyone else feel happy to be here.”
• “Luck is where preparation meets opportunity.”
• “Complaining does not work as a strategy.”
• “Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.”
• “When you go into the wilderness, the only thing you can count on is what you take with you.”

While I was in New York I finished reading The Shack by William Young. This book is amazing. It’s a fictional exploration of forgiveness and God’s love. I love how the author describes the relationship of the trinity. Even though I usually wouldn’t include quotes from fiction, a few lines really stood out to me:

• “I suppose that since most of hurts come through relationships so will our healing.”
• “Nobody wanted God in a box, just in a book.”
• “I told you for later.”
• “To force my will on you,” Jesus replied, “is exactly what love does not do. Genuine relationships are marked by submission even when your choices are not helpful or healthy.”
• “Judgment is not about destruction, but about setting things right.”
• Learn to live loved.
• “It is not the nature of love to force a relationship but it is the nature of love to open the way.”
• Live in expectancy not expectation.
• If anything matters, than everything matters.

I spent the last couple of days in New York leading worship for a conference. I was supposed to lead Thursday night, Friday morning, and Friday night. I led on Thursday night, but got food poisoning and spent Friday throwing up all day (8 times). Nothing worse than being sick and out of town. I finally got to bed about midnight and then woke up 4 hours later to catch the red-eye to get me back in time for church Saturday. Let’s just say I’m not feeling 100% and I’m looking forward to my Sunday and Monday off.

I’m in Newburgh, New York leading worship at a conference. I fly out tomorrow morning in time to be back for church on Saturday night.  It’s been an experience so far to say the least. More on that in posts to come.

One thing I really enjoy about New England - old churches. There are tons of old cathedrals on every street corner.  I love old churches. Not too many that I know of in Florida.

I just finished An Unstoppable Force by Erwin McManus. Probably the most influential book on church leadership and Christian living that I have ever read. I highly recommend it. Allow me to overwhelm you with quotes:

• “Whenever the church is seem through the template of an organization, we begin creating an institution. When we relate to the church as an organism, we begin to awaken an apostolic ethos, which unleashes the movement of God.”
• “The church can only thrive in the context of healthy relationships.”
• Change must not be seen as a necessary evil, but as a God-given tool.
• “The more one focuses on one;s own living, the less one is concerned about giving life to others.”
• “If churches wait to long to die to themselves, then they ensure that they will die by themselves.”
• “One survival has become our supreme goal, we have lost our way.”
• “All too many times we kept our traditions and lost our children.”
• “It is one thing to have a preference; it is another to demand that one’s preferences be honored above the needs of those without Christ.”
• “All the change in the world, minus the heart of God, equal zero movement.”
• “Today the call to cross-culture ministry doesn’t even require going; it just requires staying with a purpose.”
• “We have superficially attributed to generational trends what are in fact worldview shifts.”
• “We are to pitch tents, not build cathedrals.”
• Don’t build monuments, create movements.
• “God calls us to take memories with us, but leave the memorabilia behind.”
• “Many times, we would rather have Godless security than spirit-lead change.”
• “God is continually inviting us to believe that his future is better than any past we have experienced with him.”
• “The reality of change is the promise of miracle.”
• “We must leave the past, engage the present, and create the future.”
• “Values are transferred through relational environments.”
• “it is far more important to shape the values of a community than to set the rules.”
• “The church’s brithright is to be the fountainhead of creativity and human potential.”
• “The danger is going beyond an order of worship to a worship of order!”
• “It’s hard to believe that a movement born of visionaries and dreamers would become dominantly known for its traditions and rituals.”
• “In an organization, leaders must be brought in from the outside. In a movement, leaders emerge from within.”
• “Could we consider that even our death would be an act of faith if the direction of our bodies pointed to the way of God’s future?”
• “What took faith yesterday is sight today.”
• “Faith, love, and hope are not foundations or pillars; they are wellsprings.”
• “Jesus doesn;t call us to love God and tolerate our neighbor.”
• “Serving others with others is the surest path to having your own needs met.”
• “We tend to love the altar so much that we refuse to set it on fire. Yet God comes in the flames.”
• “The incarnation of Jesus Christ is God’s undeniable evidence that relevance to culture is not optional.”
• “After you expound on the purpose, then you expose the problems.”
• “Spiritual leadership in the change process is not so much about being the primary advocate of change but being the primary example of change.”
• “The Ten Commandments are the lowest possible standard of humane living.”
• “Grace has been seen as the liberty to live beneath the law rather than the capacity to soar beyond the law.”
• “When evangelism is not reserved for the elite, kingdom relationships become everyone’s responsibility.”
• “Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought.”
  - Basho