Eskai and I are of the type that choose to be surprised on our Delivery Day. So we went to the hospital armed with our hospital bags and a couple of names, not knowing which we would be having. The girl name we had chosen was Eliana Paige and as you probably know by now our boy name is Jadon Michael. Liking names with some meaning, Eliana means “God has answered” and Jadon means “Jehovah has heard.” (On a side note, his older sister’s name means “quarrelsome” and sometimes that name fits.)

I know that in the past week, since Jadon was born, Jehovah has indeed heard many prayers lifted on his behalf. I want to thank those of you who have prayed for us, for we have truly felt your love and support from wherever you may be.

On Monday, November 9 Jadon had surgery to repair his diaphragmatic hernia. His pre-operation x-ray was quite impressive as most of his intestines had found themselves in his left chest cavity. In a little over an hour, Dr. Kathy Barsness and her team had everything back in its place and Jadon resting comfortably in his spot in the NICU at Children’s Memorial in Chicago.

The hernia was able to be fixed with a few sutures, that will be with him for life, but as Dr. Barsness was finishing up the surgery she noticed that the diaphragm had pulled away from the rib cage in one spot. At this spot she used a small piece of Gore-tex to patch the hole. In her opinion Jadon only has about a 5% chance of the hernia recurring later in life. Even by the end of the surgery you could see the lung filling in the space. Dr. Barsness took pictures at several points during the surgery to show us what she did and how things look on the inside.

Everyone is happy with how Jadon came through the surgery. Now it is just a matter of time before he comes off the anesthesia and they get his meds balanced for comfort and recovery. He is still on the ventilator but will hopefully be weaned from that soon and then progress on to eating “real” food.

He has done so well so far. We feel very blessed to know that so many are praying for Jadon and our family and know that he will be making a full recovery real soon.

I know that many of you already know all of this but here is the full story.

This has been quite a week in the Foster Family. On Tuesday, November 3, 2009 at 4:37pm my son Jadon Michael Foster joined our family. Shortly, after his birth the nurses were having trouble getting his feet and legs to pink up (they were staying blue). The nurses began to listen to his heart and one side of his chest sounded quite differently than the other. At Lake Forest Hospital they have a member of the Children’s Memorial Hospital staff in Chicago who is available just for times like this. They took Jadon in for an X-ray and in a matter of an hour they diagnosed him with a Diaphragmatic Hernia.

Now before you go running off to Google Diaphragmatic Hernia (DH), you need to know that most of the issues a typical DH patient has are not seen in him. A Diaphragmatic Hernia is a hole in the diaphragm that has allowed some of the intestines to move into the chest cavity. This has caused there  to be greater pressure on his heart and lungs. They started supplementing him with oxygen and having him on a ventilator. They are using the ventilator to pretty much keep the stress off of his system.  Over the past couple of days they have been able to drop the oxygen from 23% to 21% (the same amount of oxygen that we breathe normally) and the ventilator is only set to 20 breaths per minute, down from 35. The nurses describe what he is doing as breathing “above” the ventilator, essentially the ventilator is cruise control for his breathing.

The doctors and nurses are amazed at how stable and normal he is for a DH patient. We have been able to hold him, and we have gone to see him everyday. Jadon’s neonatologist, Dr. Collins, gave him a score of 9 out of 10, and his surgeon, Dr. Barsness said that his only limitation may be that he probably won’t climb Mt. Everest or be an Olympic marathoner. Besides this hole in his diaphragm Jadon, he is a completely healthy baby boy.

They have been in no rush getting Jadon to the OR. The hernia (hole in the diaphragm) is the least of his problems and the intestines in his chest cavity are only an issue because they are putting pressure on his heart and lungs.  They want the pressure in his heart and lungs to be as low as possible and they are very happy with his progress. We are scheduled for surgery sometime on Monday, November 9.

After surgery the first step will be to get him off the ventilator, Dr. Barsness doesn’t see this taking too long with the way his vitals are looking. Once he is off the ventilator they will start feeding him through a tube and then eventually feed him from the bottle / breast. Once he has shown that his bowels are working correctly and that he is eating and gaining weight (all the stuff that they would expect him to do when he is at home).

Best case scenario is that he will be home in a week, but our goal is to have him home before Thanksgiving (I do need my boy at home to watch Thanksgiving day football).

We ask for your continued prayers for Jadon’s surgery and recovery. Eskai and I are doing well, though we’d rather have Jadon at home. Sarai is adjusting pretty well to the thought of having a baby brother (though she probably wanted a baby sister). It is still odd thinking that we are now a family of four and soon we will be all under one roof.

Thank you for your prayers and we will try to keep everyone updated after surgery and through recovery.

How many of us are scared to share our faith because we don’t have “the speech” memorized? Who knows we might say something stupid, say the wrong thing or forget a large portion of what we are “supposed” to say?

I’ll admit, not feeling good about “the speech” has kept me from talking to others about Jesus. My other fear is often that I am trying to manipulate them or give them some sort of robotic, contrived speech, neither of which is generally helpful in the conversion process.

So how do we go from manipulation to nudging people towards Jesus?

Small talk.

You might be thinking, what? Yep, that is right small talk. The “white noise” of conversation. All the talk about the weather, the kids, the bills, the game are important foundational stones that may lead to later conversations about “ultimate” sorts of things like faith.

We have placed to much emphasis on the “initial” (introductions, etc.) and “ultimate” (faith and salvation) conversations that we have left out the middle ground where people determine if we are “safe” enough to trust us with the “ultimate” conversation. We have made our God conversations about holiness and avoiding sin that people don’t think that God cares about their everyday, and who wants to worship a God that doesn’t care (I’m guessing nobody). When we rush to the “ultimate” conversation, we communicate to others that we don’t care about the details of their life, and people get the clues about Jesus from those who claim to follow and worship Jesus.

Here’s a couple of things that we can do:

1. Ask Questions- Jesus continually puts the attention on others by asking them questions. The Gospels never present Jesus as a guru who has all the answers. Maybe we should try giving fewer answers and asking more well placed questions.
2. Make small talk- Not every conversation has to convey useful and important conversation. Neither should we become meaning addicts, seeking information in every verbal exchange. Enjoy the conversation for the sake of the conversation. Realize that because you took the time to engage in small talk today, you might have the opportunity to help them with faith issues later.
3. Practice normal talk- Too often we say things that could be considered “insider” language. Use normal English when you talk to others about your life. Your “daily walk” doesn’t describe your devotional life to someone who is far from God, to them it sounds like your exercise regimen.
4. Say “Wow!”- If someone you are talking to says something shocking and you don’t know what to say, say “Wow!” This will give you a chance to collect your thoughts before saying something potentially offensive, and who doesn’t like hearing someone say “Wow!” after something they have said. It’s like saying, “Tell me more.” Try that next time one of God’s missing children shakes your worldview.

Don’t rush past the small talk. Life is in the small talk.

You might be thinking that I am starting the newest Hollywood fad religion, but nothing could be further from the truth. We tend to live for the big moments, the mountain top experiences. If this is how we live, then we miss out on so much. We miss out on the small, normal, ordinary events of our life. If everything was extraordinary, then nothing would be extraordinary, and to truly appreciate the extraordinary we need milk the ordinary for all its worth. Momentology is making a big deal out of moments one experiences in life, not just the big ones but the ordinary ones as well.

Jim Henderson wrote this in his book a.k.a. “Lost,”

When you can notice God in your own life, it’s easier to recognize Him in someone else’s. If you can make a big deal out of the small stuff in your life, it will be more natural for you to do the same for others.

We live in this world that celebrates the celebrity and believes that unless you are supernaturally gifted you can’t accomplish much. Do you want to know how things get done? They get done because normal, ordinary people do what they normally, ordinarily do. They put in the work, the time, the effort to accomplish the tasks that need to be done.

The beautiful thing is that it isn’t our job to bring people to salvation. God does the saving; we do simple ordinary things to nudge people closer to relationship with Him.

What can you do today? Seize the moments God gives us to be ordinary for Him.

Sunday morning I was to bring our bulletins/programs for the week. It was about 9:15 when I realized that they were at home. Frustrated with myself, I jumped in the car and drove back to the house to get them. I was going to miss our weekly prayer time and the chance to hang out with some of my favorite people. As I turned north on Almond Rd. to head towards the house Galatians 6:9 stuck in my head. Here is what it says:

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

Just a piece of encouragement for you today. I am still feeling a bit weary, but I do not plan on giving up. We have a harvest to reap. “Father, use me to bring the missing back home to You.”

A few years back I read Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. In the book they have a chapter about names and how a child’s name correlates with their future success or delinquency. Here is a story on their findings.

What would it be if we viewed those who were not yet followers of Jesus differently? The common name that most Christians call non-Christians is “lost.” This separation has been the case for as long as I can remember. We have created this superiority of those of us who are found and the foolishness of those who are lost.

You might say, “Well, Jesus called them lost.” I thought the same thing until someone mentioned that though they are lost, they are also missing. Jesus implied the responsibility for the sheep belonged to the shepherd. The coins had no way of getting lost, its lostness showed that it had gone missing. And though the son made a choice to lose himself and run away from his father, upon his return his father mentioned nothing of the prior lostness, but only celebrated his son’s “foundness.”

There is something about the word lost. One, most people far from God do not know that they are lost, they have no clue about it. Lost is final. Lost means defeat. Lost means all hope is gone. Secondly, God doesn’t consider them lost, just missing. Missing from His love, His embrace and His family.

Instead of finding the lost, who don’t know they are lost, we should be about connecting the missing with those who love them.

Before I begin, I want to thank Lance Hurley (or @LanceHurley for you on Twitter) for suggesting I read a book called a.k.a. “Lost”: Discovering ways to connect with the people Jesus misses most by Jim Henderson.

Too often we make evangelism too complicated. We make it about a sales pitch, the right story and the right linear outline to get people to say “Yes” to Jesus. We make it something designed for the extroverts and salesman among us, and something that scares the snot out of most people who would call themselves followers of Jesus.

Why is it that we make such a critical thing to the life of the church so hard that no one but a few can be “successful” at it? Probably because we have so confounded what evangelism is that we are no longer doing it. Instead of limiting to a speal (sp?) that we give to some unsuspecting person, why not make it easier? Why not make evangelism something that truly anyone can do?

Henderson suggests counting “ordinary attempts.” Ordinary attempts are as easy as free attention giveaways. Instead of asking something from people, we give them the gift our time, attention and interest. This allows us to not have to put on a mask or be what we are not. It frees us to be just our ordinary selves, and it turns out that that is all that Jesus needs, remember what He did with an ordinary lunch of 5 loaves and 2 fish.

Rather than trying to escape the ordinary, why not exploit it and let God turn the ordinary into something extraordinary (He’s the one who does the saving anyway). Maybe through our ordinary attempt (“a cup of cold water offered in His name”), someone will be nudged closer to God and a relationship with Him.

So as a Staff and Leadership at North Point, we are reading Craig Groeschel’s book It. Now It has been a fascinating read up until chapter 10, chapter 10 kicked me in the butt and here is why:

I am far too possessive of MY ministry. The Warren Campus isn’t MY ministry. The Warren Campus is a ministry opportunity God has given to me, to serve, to be used so that others might come to know Him. After reading this chapter I wonder if our slow growth has been because of my possessive nature. I will at least say that mindset probably hasn’t helped. Now that I know this, it is up to me to do something about it.

How do I become more open handed yet desire our campus to grow? How do I look to lift other ministries up while at the same time working to draw others to God? It seems counter-intuitive to praise what God is doing through other ministries while trying to increase attendance in your own. This is not saying that we tear down what we are doing, but acknowledge that God is working in many different locations and ways to draw men to Himself.

We are not God’s gift to the world, that was Jesus and He was given to the world so that we might find grace and a renewed relationship with God. My prayer is that God still uses the Warren Campus to impact Warren Township/ Wildwood/ Grandwood Park/ Gurnee/ Grayslake. May we be open handed with what God has given us so that we don’t restrict His blessing on our behalf.

As many of you know, I’ve been fasting on a more regular basis here recently. I have been typically taking Tuesday’s as a day to be more intentional about praying for the Warren Campus and our impact in the local community.

Yesterday, though, was one of those days that never really seemed to achieve desired outcome. We had a longer than usual, but still productive, staff meeting. Then as my usual Tuesday routine has it, I take care of paying the North Point bills, not exactly the favorite part of my job but it is a role of mine on the team. A job that usually takes an hour or so of my time too me three-and-a-half hours. There was determining who to pay, making calls, returning calls, answering calls, printing and signing checks. When that was all done it was time to call it a day.

Needless to say, when dinner time came, I broke my fast as I felt that I had spent most of the day just not eating, not truly fasting and seeking God.

Fasting to me isn’t just going without food, that tends not to be a helathy endeavor in and of itself, but when it is coupled with a pursuit of God the two work together to bring about a sense of God’s direction for one individually and corportately.

In our culture, humility is not always seen as a benefit or value worth having, often it is just the opposite. Celebrities and heroes hype and advance themselves. They put themselves over and above the team, others or the organization they are supporting.

Now I fully believe the good others do needs to be praised, supported and admired. When those around us do the right things they need to be affirmed for taking the right stand. I think greater focus on the positives of society will make the negatives less desirable.

Humility is the way of Jesus. Even a quick read through the Gospels will paint a picture of Jesus that shows a humble Savior. He never highlights His own abilities. He goes out of His way to serve others and then disappears. He accepts worship because He is God, but doesn’t allow people to force Him into positions that are not His to take (John 6).

So how can we follow the way of Jesus and be more humble? Often times we need to slow our timing down. Just because we feel called to something doesn’t mean that now is the right time or place. We may have lessons to learn in the process before we get to the point where our calling comes to fruition. Think of pride as eating unripe fruit: a little bitter, a little hard, not necessarily bad, but not good. When we act out of pride by doing God’s will in our timing it is never as sweet as if we waited until the time was right (or ripe).

Today: be different, be humble and follow the way of Jesus.