compelled by love

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: Christianity, missional living, social justice, sports
• Date: Dec 23,2008

I still have tears in my eyes. This is one of the neatest stories I’ve come across in a long time. Just read:

ESPN.com’s Rick Reilly: There are some games where cheering for the other side feels better than winning

pinch me

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: sports
• Date: Oct 7,2008

Unbelievable. From the St. Louis American:

Mizzou number 3 in AP Poll
Monday, October 6, 2008 9:53 AM CDT

Mizzou is in the top three of The AP college football poll. After a week with few upsets, the top of media poll only underwent slight alterations.

Oklahoma was No. 1 with 51 first-place votes and 1,608 points, gaining a few points and top votes in its second week on top of the rankings this season.

No. 2 Alabama has 13 first-place votes and 1,537 points. Missouri moved up one spot to No. 3 after winning 52-17 at Nebraska.

LSU dropped a spot to No. 4 after an off week, and Texas remained No. 5. The Longhorns and Sooners meet Saturday in the annual Red River Rivalry in Dallas. It’ll be the fourth time since 2001 that Texas and Oklahoma will play with both teams in the top five and first time since 2004.

No. 6 Penn State and No. 7 Texas Tech held their spots. No. 8 Southern California and No. 9 BYU flip-flopped after USC’s easy 44-10 victory against Oregon.

Georgia moved up a spot to No. 10.

dan kimball here for abandoned: worship as life seminar 2008

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: art, community, emerging church, emerging culture, evangelism, examining, missiology, my favorite songs, planning, post-Christendom, q & a, quotes of note, radio, social justice, sports, theology, worship
• Date: May 6,2008

It is with great excitement that I announce that Dan Kimball, pastor of Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz, CA, conference speaker, and author of The Emerging Church, Emerging Worship, and , They Like Jesus, But Not the Church and co-author of Listening to the Beliefs of the Emerging Church, has agreed to be our keynote speaker for the Abandoned: Worship As Life Seminar on Saturday, September 27, 2008!

Dan will speak in four sessions on various issues such as the emerging church, emerging worship, the future of worship in the church, etc.

I must say that Kimball’s book, The Emerging Church, absolutely changed my life. It set me on a course of deconstruction and reconstruction in my ecclesiology and Emerging Worship did the same for my worship philosophy. It is an unbelievable honor to have him come.

If you remember, last year Sally Morgenthaler and Shaun Groves were with us. It was a time of great challenge and encouragement.

My vision for Abandoned remains focused on the emerging worship conversation and educating, encouraging, and spurring on MBU Worship Arts students, as well as the local church worship community. The mission for the event is:

1) Simply put, Romans 12:1. We are ‘abandoned to worship as life’ because we have been commanded to offer our bodies of living sacrifices. Living – as in all of the time. That means our spiritual act of worship, or our spiritual lifestyle, never ceases. It’s not a something we clock in to do when we go to church and then clock out. Because of the cross the ‘temple’ of worship is now our own hearts. We don’t go to church, we are the church. And that means worship can and should happen everywhere, including the church.

2) ‘Worship as life’ eludes to the idea that as we offer our bodies as living sacrifices, it impacts the people around us. This is the missional aspect of worship. In other words, as we personally worship God, we have a conversation, a connection, an intimate exchange of love between Father and child. After we’ve experienced this love in a time of worship, how could we not share the love we have been so freely given with others? Why wouldn’t we want those around us to experience what we have? If not, our worship has terminated on ourselves. We have to remember our salvation doesn’t end at the point we receive God’s free gift of grace. We have been saved to continue to redeem the world. So our worship should propel us outside the four walls of the church.

Soon, I will have an announcement regarding the artist[s] that will be here to close the day out on that Saturday evening. Be looking for more information regarding the seminar in the months ahead!

take me out to the ballgame

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: family, fatherhood, parenting, relevintage, sports
• Date: Apr 12,2008

These last few months have been filled with ‘firsts’ for Cooper: losing his first tooth, getting baptized, going to a Cards game, and last Wednesday, playing in his first baseball game [it's called Pal Ball and they use a pitching machine]. Here are some snapshots from the friendly confines of Bridgeton Municipal Athletic Complex:

coop’s first cardinals game

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: family, fatherhood, parenting, sports
• Date: Apr 11,2008

As I mentioned last week, three generations of Andrews’ – myself, my six-year old son, and my dad – went to see the Cards play the Nats. Well, we had a great time. Frankly, at times, it was a bit emotional. Here are some shots from Cooper’s first Cardinals game…

In all, the Cards beat the Nats. Rick Ankiel hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the first – his story still blows me away, btw. It was a cold night – a far cry from the sweltering games in mid-July. They still were serving frozen lemonade and Ben and Jerry’s. Go figure. Look at it this way. Your soda stayed cold the entire game. But so did your face.

Here was my favorite quote from Cooper:

“I want some cotton candy. It is my job to eat it. But it melts so fast I can’t enjoy it.”

Classic.

new beginnings…

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: humor, sports
• Date: Apr 2,2008

In honor of the beginning of baseball season:

Three generations of Andrews’ – me, my son, and my dad – are going to see the Cardinals play Friday night against the Washington Nationals. It will be my 6-year old son’s first Cards experience. Honestly, it will be a bit emotional to share it with him and my dad who took me when I was a kid. Sniff, sniff…

thxgiving 2007 @ the andrews’ ranch

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: Bible, family, fatherhood, food, Gospel, parenting, relationships, sports
• Date: Nov 22,2007

What a day this has been…

The fam started off the day with some chocolate-chip pumpkin muffins courtesy of Hol and some ice-cold milk…

Watched the local St. Louis Thxgiving Day parade on KMOV-5 CBS. At one point, Rocky – from Rocky and Bullwinkle – was afloatin’ and my son Cooper said, “Hey, that’s in the book!” Sure enough, it was in a book we had gotten the day before from our local library about Thxgiving. There was one page about parades and there was a Rocky balloon on that page. Scary…

Read some books about Thxgiving – and horses for homeschooling purposes – to my kids. My son kept saying the first Thxgiving was started by the Pilgrims and the Jacksons. Not sure if he means our neighbors or the Jackson 5…

Lots of wrestling, complete with their favorite Daddy move – The British Bulldog suplex – with the three oldest…

Watched pre-game and first quarter of Lions/Packers before I zonked…

Got a two-hour nap in…totally missed lunch…

Woke up and caught the end of the Lions/Packers game. My son, Cooper, had colored a picture of a football player for me while I was napping. I don’t have the heart to tell him colored the “Rams” jersey – as he called it – with Minnesota Vikings colors. What am I saying – it’s on the fridge…

During the course of the afternoon, my daughter Sloan kept sneaking into the kitchen and eating the tops off of the left-over muffins. When she’s older, she’ll love this episode of Seinfeld…

Helped Holly with the Thxgiving meal prep – while peeking at the Cowboys/Jets game and cooing with my 3-month son Everett…

A hearty meal of Honeybaked ham, babyback ribs, garlic mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, broccoli casserole, cheesy mac & cheese, and rolls awaited us…

Before our prayer, we thanked God for one another, our health and well-being, his blessings on us, and for those less fortunate…

Then we slammed down the fixin’s. My daughter Margo rivaled me on ham consumption…

After supper, Cooper, Margo, and I played a game of Sorry…Daddy won straight up…

Before bedtime, we read the story of Zacchaeus from the Jesus Storybook Bible…

Talked as a family about how we should be most thankful that Jesus loves us like he loved Zacchaeus. Even though Jesus knew everything about Zacchaeus, he still loved him. In fact, Jesus loved Zacchaeus when nobody else did. His love for Zacchaeus shows us what God’s love is like for us…

Put the kids to bed and prayed again, thanking God for his goodness…

Now the kids are in asleep and Holly and I are going to watch a little Grey’s, Everybody Hates Chris, and maybe – if we are still awake – Apocalypto. Chilling in this way is one of our favorite things…

What happened between the four walls of this house today is what life is truly about. For this, I am thankful…

bill simmons quote[s] of the week

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: humor, sports
• Date: Oct 17,2007

“Back in the mid-’80s, every time the Celtics walked off an opposing floor after a hard-fought road victory, a giddy Kevin McHale clenched his fists, raised his Frankenstein arms above his head and showed off his victorious armpits. This was the hairy victory cigar of the Bird era.”

- Bill Simmons, from his ESPN Page 2 article, “Kneel before the Pats — ’cause the Pats ain’t kneeling,” on how the brash 2007-2008 Patriots remind him of Kevin McHale’s Boston Celtics of the 80′s

“For some reason, I’m thinking about these elaborate home run handshakes that have become all the rage…does someone like Lofton go up to Martinez during batting practice before Game 2 and say, “I thought up a six-part celebration in case either one of us hits a homer, do you have time to rehearse it later?” Is that how it works?”

-Bill Simmons, from his ESPN Page 2 article, “There’s only one October diary,” on the complex handshakes of the modern baseball generation

bill simmons quote of the week

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: humor, sports
• Date: Oct 5,2007

“Seriously, did a single person watch Bowe on “Hard Knocks” and think, “That guy looks great, he’s gonna be a star in this league?” You’re lying if you saw this coming. All I know is D-Bowe single-handedly destroyed the Chargers last Sunday, to the degree that I felt obligated to put the word “destroyed” in italics.”

-Bill Simmons from his ESPN Page 2 article, “Separating the teasers from the pleasers” on Kansas City Chiefs rookie, Dwayne Bowe, and his breakout performance last week against the San Diego chargers

bill simmons [& andy schatz] quote of the week, part 2

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: humor, sports
• Date: Sep 12,2007

This just in…

Schatz: Terrell Davis actually suggested on NFL.com that the league should ban the Patriots from the playoffs for two years. You know, since that’s how the NFL became the most popular sports league in America, by sending a message to every sports fan in six states that they should go away and stop paying attention for two seasons.

Simmons: I love the fact you just quoted a Terrell Davis column. I’m just finishing his book about the Gaza Strip.

-Bill Simmons from his ESPN Page 2 column, “Camera doesn’t lie: Pats have their Watergate,” in which he interviews Patriots fan, creator of Footballoutsiders.com and author of the 2007 Pro Football Prospectus, Aaron Schatz, on Cameragate.