Paradox Went Metro

Yesterday was an incredible day at Paradox. The baptisms, the music, the food, the games, all of it made for an amazing day.

A huge congratulations to all the people that were baptized yesterday in the lake, May God bless you, and keep you, and make His face to shine upon you.

Congrats to...

• Jenna Green
  

• Shai Wall
  

• Danny Hitz
  

• Corey Kennedy
  

• Chris Renaud
  

• Jamie Johnson
  

• John Howd

• Roberta Belanger
  

• Brian Hilton
  

• Zack Paryaski

• Olivia Paryaski

• Emma Paryaski

• Tobin McGlassion
  

• Kirsten Gross

• Alexa Cipponeri

• Chris Motschall
  

• Mike Sposite
  

Why Don't We Do This More Often

Yesterday was my official, "first day of vacation" and my family and I all went to the zoo together.

I think it was while we were eating lunch on the lawn next to the grizzly bears that I thought, "there is no other place I'd rather be". I felt like I was breathing deeper than the last few weeks, I felt like I was smelling things better, I felt like I was hearing thing better & I was laughing, a lot more than I have been lately.

I really love my family so much, and I realized yesterday that quality time with them is such a
de-stresser for me. Today I'll be power washing the house and this weekend (other than Paradox goes metro of course) I'll be catching up on my long list of home projects that I want to finish this summer.

Starting Monday I'm going off the TV for a few weeks and am looking forward to the way that will help clear the noise in my head too, wish it would help with the voices in my head but nothing has yet.

Give all your family a hug today & tell them how precious they are to you!

See you on Sunday.

With A Blow-dryer

I thought that in the days leading up to us going to Metro beach for baptism, that this is an interesting article. It's especially interesting to me because we have a number of young kids who are being baptized; each of them having ALONE made the decision to follow Jesus.

After reading the article, ask yourself, why is it that when there is an obvious backlash against "religion", why is it nearly always directed at Christianity.

• Banning of the 10 commandments from public places
  
• Can not teach creationism in schools
  
• Can not swear on the bible in court
• My son was recently told he couldn't bring a bible to school
• The list goes on
  

If you're really honest, whether a person of faith or not, you have to admit that Christianity is the biggest focus of anti-religions efforts and feelings.

Part of that is our own fault for giving so much ammo. Too seldom do we act like & treat people like what it means to be a follower of Jesus. But, the other possible reason is that the bible says there is a being (satan) that exists as the immortal enemy of God, & good, & humanity. It would make sense that the enemy of God is not interested in attacking false gods and beliefs; his energy in humanity would naturally be focused at the one, true, being, who is God.

Don't miss either that the right response to a thing like this is not to attack the people who do not believe, but to instead examine yourself to see where you need to live more Jesus. Our greatest evidence will always be our lifestyles not our arguments.

Thanks for sending me the article April.

Click HERE to read the article

The 50 Fruits Of Pride

As promised this morning in my sermon, here is the list of the 50 fruits of pride. This is not my own work but work that I thought was excellently done.

Use this list, and it's accompanying steps to embracing humility, and you may be shocked at what God reveals to you about your own pride and humility.

May God make us a more humble people, to the end of knowing Christ Jesus more fully and more fully making Christ Jesus known.

Click here for the list

How To Breathe

One of the more longed for, and yet seemingly impossible to attain things Jesus ever promised, was rest (Matthew 11:28).

Some of us just rest better than others but in general, I don't think most of us know how to truly rest, I know I don't. Actually, I have often joked, "Rest! Who needs rest, work hard, die well and then you can rest for eternity in the presence of Jesus".

I think my dad taught me to work hard and not to give up, a lesson to which I am eternally thankful to my dad. But there is another option between work hard and go to heaven; these are not the only two options.

The middle option is to breathe

Sure, I can work hard till I die, but if I don't better learn the art of rest then chances are, I'll die too soon from my work.

All that to say, I have not done a good job of creating rest for myself and my family since we began Paradox. We're almost 4 years in now, plus the year and a half of work before we launched and opened our doors. It's been an awesome ride, but an exhausting one too, and along the way I have not rested well or often.

Taking a break is hard for me though, hard because I think of what won't get done, who will have to do more & what I might miss if I'm not around every minute. Plus I kinda have an old school, leader mentality; first one on the deck & last one off. Everyone at Paradox, that is involved, is giving so much to make it all happen and makes me feel like I'm not pulling my weight if I take a break, skip a beat, or stop to catch my breath; take time to breathe.

It's time I take a break. Not a huge one (well huge for me) but a short time to catch my breath, time to help my family catch their breath. It's time to refresh my spiritually breathing as well and pursue Jesus in a way, that the fast pace of life often fights against.

Starting this coming Monday I will be off for the next 4 weeks. I'll be back for Paradox goes Metro but other than that, I'm going awol.

I plan to still post here most days of the week because I really enjoy putting my thoughts down & giving my 3 fans the chance to read them. But I also want to keep a running log of what I'm learning, hearing from God & how I am pursuing and experiencing rest.

I know some of what I will do is that I plan to fats the things that could easily consume my time and provide no real rest. Things like, TV, facebook, email, and a few others. But, I will also take a week away with my family, get some work done around the house, go to the zoo with my kids & just be around.

I also plan to take a few days to go away, alone, and try to connect with Jesus in complete solitude. I want to hear Him talk to me about me, about Him, about our church, about whatever He wants to talk about, I want to listen.

Pray for me if you will, that I can experience rest during this time and that I can help create rest for my family during this time too.

I can't wait for the fall and all the stuff we have in store, but for now, I need to rest and breathe.

Hampster Hero

Yes, that is but another name to add to my fame. My son's second, and most recent hamster got out of it's cage a few days ago.

Yes, he has two hamsters, and by the way, they begin a fight to the death when you put them face to face, but that's another post on another day.

So, we thought all was lost for lightning, until the other night when I heard him scratching around...

where you ask?

In the furnace.

Not in the duct work but in the actuall belly of the furnace. It was like the hamster version of Jonah and the whale. Sinful little hamster, obey God next time!!

Well, after taking apart a portion of the furnace and thanking God it was winter (in other words, the furnace was off) I rescued the little fur ball who was fleeing from God and from his aggressive 7 year old owner. All of which earned me, "best dad in the world" title from my son when he got home, and a reference in the hamster bible.

Just in case you're having a bad day I wanted to begin with that story of joy & hope against all odds -- you're welcome.

Had a GREAT meeting last night with our directors and elders, what a team! We have several new roles developing at Paradox right now. A few of these roles are in the areas of administration and event planning, can you say, AWESOME, and they were in full effect last night.

I am, how do you say, not detailed or very administrative. So, when many of our events these last few years have been left to me to plan the details of, well, mucho frustration and confusion has been the victor of the day. But now with such a great team working with me to plan far out with the big picture in mind and others able to plan equally far our with the details, I'm just saying, watch out!

Last night we were able to begin discussion and planning for things like...

• Our fall kick off
  
• Partnering with Warren for the Trunk R Treat this year
  
• Metro beach Sunday
• The staff retreat this fall
  
• The catalyst conference in October
• The all serve Sunday on August 29th
  
• The leaf raking serving event we are doing in the Fall
  
• A Christmas Eve service this year
  
• A possible volunteer appreciation in December
  
• What to do with the Sunday morning the day after Christmas this year
  

It was a crazy couple hours of ideas, and planning, and questions, and dreaming, and I loved it.
What a cool team, what a cool church & what a cool next year this is going to be.

What Day Is It?

Holy smokers!!!!!

So, I had my "minor surgery" on Monday afternoon & I'm just now, this morning, finally getting back to the world of the living.

I was only supposed to be put under what they call "twilight", kinda like the movie only without the vampires & werewolves.

But, the doctor said I was fighting it and they were having trouble with "saturation"; basically, I wasn't going out enough. That's apparently when they decided to put me fully under, intubated and all. Then they gave me a medicine for the pain during recovery, a medicine that I was told would be, "better than vicodin". Well, I had a really bad reaction to the anesthesia and an allergic reaction to the post op meds so I was literally a mess since I got home.

I'm not sure if the constant puking, the throbbing head that felt squeezed like a cat by a cat loving two year old girl, the disorientation that made it hard to even sit up let alone know what day it was, or the pain in my heal (where the surgery actually happened), but either way,

IT WAS AWFUL!!

So, however your Monday & Tuesday went, I'm pretty sure I would have traded you. But I'm glad to be back & have some serious lost time to make up for now.

Tonight our elders & our directors will begin changing the way we have meetings so that a few times a month we will all be meeting together; I'm really excited about the simple change. Excited because we have an amazing team of elders & ministry directors & so the opportunity to work all together as opposed to separate meetings all the time should greatly increase our effectiveness.

Well, glad to be back & thanks to anyone who prayed for my surgery, but clearly you did not pray enough. :)

High School Is Over For The McGlassions

Today my youngest sister Marissa is having her graduation party.

Graduation from high school!!

She is 16 years younger than me and the last of my 6 siblings to finish H.S. So, I wanted to give her a shout and say congrats little sis.

I'm looking forward to service tomorrow, and having Tom back with us. After a few weeks off to celebrate the birth of his daughter, it will be great to have him back.

Hope to see you at Paradox tomorrow and since I just got paged by my youngest daughter with, "dad I didn't get to the toilet in time", I think I need to check out from here & go be a daddy.

See ya in the morning.

I Am Superhuman

I really am. And what is my super human evidence, you ask?

I have a third heel. Yes, I know,

it's amazing!

And with this super human adaption to my body, I am able to accomplish incredible feats that the average human being could only dream of. Things so unbelievable that I couldn't even tell you lest you faint from pure, jealousy induced, amazement.

Actually, it kinda hurts.

Which is why I went to my Dr recently to ask him why I am growing a twin brother on my heel.

His response, "hmm, not sure what that is, it's weird though", was not the most comforting thing I've ever heard my doctor say.
So, I went to the specialist who had much the same response followed by, "we're going to need to cut that off and biopsy it". That will be happening on Monday.

Yeah, it's anesthetization time!! The Dr did tell me it made me unique though, to which I thought, "Please tell me there is something more than my heel twin that makes me unique".

And guess what, there is!! Actually there is for us all.

In the bible, Psalms 139 tells us that God not only uniquely made us but because of that, He intimately knows us. Even though I believe that, I have often thought that I'm still not all that different from anyone else, am I?

There is a strength based assessment called the StrengthsFinder. It's a tool that measures the order of a person's strengths based on a list of 34 traits. These traits are measured and charted from 1 (your strongest) to 34 (your weakest). At the end of the test you are given your top 5 strengths (in order) with the belief that success is found when a person operates in their strengths & not by trying to increase the effectiveness of their lower strengths. I took the test some time ago but attended a seminar on these strengths two weeks ago.

I learned one thing that completely fascinated me; much like you probably felt when you learned of my super human heel.

In your entire life only ONE other human being will ever share the exact order of your particular top five strengths.

AND, throughout all of human history NO ONE will EVER share the exact order of all 34 of your strengths.

I love it when science and technology tell us what God has already been telling us.

You are fearfully & wonderfully & uniquely made. There truly is not another human being like you, there never has been & there never will be. If you ever doubt that God made you for reason & purpose, that He actually has plans for life, then just remember that He only made one of you, there is no one else like you.

How amazing, and how loving, and how purposeful, is our Lord & savior, Jesus Christ.

The Day The World Almost Ended

The TV, no kidding, the TV went out yesterday. Turned it on & the TV read, "no signal acquired, disconnected form source" and with a Luke Skywalker passion I screamed, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO", and that's when we all went into a panic, yes, a PANIC!

From me to the boy, down to the 3 year old girls, it was like our world momentarily stopped & time stood still.

CRAZY!!!

But thank goodness for momma! My wife called the TV overlords who, with a flip of a switch, fixed all my problems. OK, so not ALL my problems but at least my TV problems, and when the TV read, "signal reacquired", it was like, for a brief moment, all was right in the universe again.

I figured you'll all be happy for me that my suffering, though horrible, was quickly over.

Speaking of which, the issues at hand this Sunday in week three of our study of the Biblical book of Philippians is, suffering.

• Why do we suffer
  
• How do we suffer well
  
• When will our suffering end
  
• Why don't people who deserve to suffer more than us ever seem to suffer as much
  

These are just a few of the questions Paul will address in his letter to his friends the Philippians this Sunday. So, if you've ever suffered, are suffering, have a friend who is suffering, or don't have a working TV, then make sure to join us this Sunday as Paul gives comfort, promise & hope to the times that we suffer.

Fast Times At Paradox Church

Recently the staff at Paradox decided that we would like to fast together on Wednesdays.

Some of the staff will be fasting till dinner, some all day and some just for lunch. But we'll be doing it together every Wednesday. As we fast there are certain to be several things in each of our lives that we will be seeking God about, but together we will also be seeking Him about our church & it's impact in our city.

This last week I used a phrase on Sunday that was reflective of our mission & our heart, and it went like this,

"that the people in our city, would meet the person of Jesus, through the people at Paradox".

As we fast we will continue to pray for this together & we will pray that God will grow our leadership, our resources, our passions & our opportunities to this end.

So, this is an invite to you to join us on these days in prayer & fasting, for as Jesus said, there are some thing that only happen when we pray & fast.

Happy Birthday

Today is the birthday day of my amazing gal pal.

Happy birthday Nicole!!

I love you baby and am thankful for you as my wife, friend and awesome mom to our kids.

Congrats!

Doing a wedding today for Josh & Heidi, an awesome couple that I am honored to serve today.

Congratulations you two!!

Favorite line of the morning will be...

...this relationship only has two potential problems as far as I can see...

The man & the woman

other than that this thing has huge potential.

Well Hello Friday

Sooo, it seems like the entire world has the day off today (or at least the three people I'm thinking of right now - that my friends is my gift of exaggeration at work, your welcome!) and I'm wondering how I missed the boat.

I have a packed next few days, with a wedding rehearsal, the wedding itself, preaching on Sunday & my wife's birthday to celebrate in the middle of it all. So, this morning I made sure to begin with some time of quiet & peace in the presence of God. I opened the scriptures & continued reading in the book of Ezekiel where I've been for a while now. This morning I was in chapter 4 again where God instructs Ezekiel to lay down for 390 days, and I'm thinking, "I could go back to bed for the next year!!". Then God instructs him as to the manner in which he needs to eat over this time, the process of which would be weird enough in just the fact that he is eating while lying down.

BUT

God then instructs him to cook his food over human poo. Yes, my friends, human poo. Ezekiel isn't so kosher with the idea & asks God to reconsider. So, God changes His mind & tells him to instead, use cow poo. Now all types of funny thoughts are running though my head, but I'll not share because most of them are amazingly inappropriate (yes, that too is a gift -- I know, so much gifting in one man. You're right, it's not fair).

So, as I embark on my busy weekend while the rest of the world enjoys the weekend off, I am at least to be thankful that God has not asked me to cook my food over poo inserted into my gas grill.

I told you this blog would be a peek into my head & that it may at times be weird. So, happy 4th of July weekend & I pray you have a great time celebrating with friends & family.

Don't forget this weekend though that there is a far greater freedom to celebrate than from a tyrannical, English, government, but from sin, death & separation from God.

Praise you Jesus for the freedom you have bought & paid for on our behalf.