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Last week was a busy week for Katie and me. My parents actually arrived the weekend before for a short trip. We enjoyed having them here and were grateful to show them a little bit of our lives God has blessed us to live here in Oklahoma. Since they were here on a Sunday they were able to meet so many of the wonderful Christians here at Broken Arrow. We enjoyed getting to see them, even though it was for a short time. After they left early Tuesday morning, I spent all of Tuesday and Wednesday sick at home.

The Christian American culture is something I’ve thought a lot about over the last couple of years. For so long many people have considered being an American synonymous with being a Christian. And, whether it’s intentional or not, it feels as though many people value their status as an Americans more highly than they do their status as a citizen of the kingdom of heaven. What does being a Christian have anything to do with the country I live in? And how does the proverbial “American Dream” fall in line with what Jesus had to say about our allegiances and our values?

Katie and I were at Mardel several weeks ago and I saw the book Radical: Taking Back Your Faith From The American Dream by Davit Platt. I was immediately intrigued by the title and began to flip through it. It seemed like a good book, and I filed it away in my brain as a book to get sometime in the future. A couple days later we were at a friend’s house and I noticed they had a copy. When I asked about it they told me I could have their copy. I read through it quickly and now Katie is almost finished with it.

This is an excellent book.

Sunday was a pretty busy day for me. I realize that “normal” preachers do this stuff all the time, but for me, it was busy.

I taught my final class with the high school students first thing that morning. We had a good lesson on understanding that, as Christians, it matters what other people think about us. I’ve been able to teach that class for about four weeks now, but beginning next week I’ll start rotating through all the adult classes so that Katie and I can continue to meet more and more of the congregation.

Once a month the church here splits up for Sunday evenings and does what they call “Life Groups.” To use a more familiar term, they do small groups together. Though they have tried versions of these in the past, they really seem to have taken off this time and have provided good community and accountability in this congregation of seven hundred Christians.

I have been absolutely amazed at all there is to learn about ministers, missionaries, and taxes. I feel like every day I learn (or re-learn) something new. It is amazing how hard it can be to do this work with integrity, as so much of this stuff is just begging to be swept under the rug and labeled “Not So Important.”

One such matter that has really surprised me is the subject of ministers opting out of Social Security. Ministers are one of a very select few who can easily say they don’t want to participate in Social Security. The simple reasoning behind it is that if you feel like being a part of Social Security goes against what you believe, and you work as a minister (a job entirely based on your faith), you may opt-out.

I am just getting so tired of it, you know? From the very first trailer we saw for it months ago, Steve Carell’s new comedy Dinner For Schmucks looked absolutely hilarious. It truly looked like a genuine comedy, funny because it’s funny and not funny because it’s full of shocking, revolting sexual humor. And because nothing in the trailers seemed to indicate it being filthy (as they typically do), Katie and I had been making plans to go see the movie on opening day.

However, as we do for all our movies now, we checked Plugged In Online (read more about the site here) before we headed off. Turns out, it is just like almost every other comedy coming out today: full of sexual vulgarity. No I don’t mean a few innuendos, I mean saturated with exaggerated sexual humor designed to make you laugh because of how uncomfortable you are, simultaneously introducing images and situations to your mind that you never would have had up there otherwise.

So as for me and my house, we will not allow ourselves to put this movie into our minds, a place where dialogue, images and situations can be recorded for a lifetime.

Check out the Plugged In review for the movie here.

Today is Katie’s 27th birthday. I couldn’t be more happy to have her in my life than I am right now. I am so thankful that she was born and am eternally grateful for the life she’s chosen to live with me. So, dear wife, today I wanted to share 27 things I love about you. To everyone else, please feel free to add your own in the comments!

We drove up to Coffeyville late Saturday afternoon and got to spend about an hour visiting with the elder over missions and his wife, and then around six most of the elders and their wives, and the deacons and their wives (plus the minister and his family) showed up for dinner. We met a lot of new people and got to tell them all briefly about the work we want to do in Kharkov.