“I want to say I believe that if …men conducted their business in the way the Church business is conducted at the present day, they would be bankrupt in six months; and if the newspapers did so, they’d close up their business inside of the same period.”—D.L. Moody wrote in 1911 in his book “Thou Fool.”

MSNBC writes:

“The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey estimates the United States is 78 percent Christian and about to lose its status as a majority Protestant nation, at 51 percent and slipping.” (2008)

The YMCA is changing its name to simply “the Y”.

A New York Times article focused much on “all the abbreviations being adopted as formal names by companies and charities alike” (ie. KFC and NPR)—but the last time I checked YMCA was already an acronym—isn’t it? An acronym that stood for Young Mens Christian Association?

But they want to reduce it to a way that’s “warmer, more genuine, more welcoming, when you call yourself what everyone else calls you,” said Kate Coleman, the organization’s senior vice president and chief marketing officer.

Sadly, it is no surprise that the YMCA has drifted from its original intent of “Twenty-two-year-old George Williams, a farmer-turned-department store worker, (who) joined 11 friends to organize the first Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), a refuge of Bible study and prayer for young men seeking escape from the hazards of life on the streets.” And to remove the letters referring to “Men and Christian” from the acronym is probably more descriptive of the work that “the Y” now undergoes.

But here lies the question: How much of what we do as Christians can be simply replaced by the changing of a couple of acronyms here and there?

The lesson? If we are not completely focused on preaching the gospel in everything we are doing, we are in danger of forfeiting our platform to simply good works.

As the great missions hymn tells us;

We’ve a story to tell to the nations,

that shall turn their hearts to the right,

a story of truth and mercy,

a story of peace and light,

a story of peace and light.

For the darkness shall turn to dawning,

and the dawning to noonday bright;

and Christ’s great kingdom shall come on earth,

the kingdom of love and light.

When we neglect the story of the gospel, we miss the opportunity to share the message of salvation to the world and we turn from Young Christian Men to just “The Young”.

After writing my post on Tuesday about hobbies, I have been caught off guard by the number of hobbies that I left off my list. Some of these have been hobbies that I have enjoyed before, but ran out of time to be able to continue them. Obviously, I can’t be fully engaged in all of them, so I choose to focus on the hobbies that I am committed to: comic books and genealogy—because of not I will be overwhelmed by the amount of time to be committed to all of the hobbies. I really need to start a business in which I just do hobbies when I retire.

So here is a list of other hobbies I want to do:

1. Chess: I’ve enjoyed chess in the past and even have a small library of books to help me learn—but never followed through. Here is something I want to help my children learn. So, I may soon be enjoying this hobby by default.

2. Monopoly: This is another game that I just love to play. I have five different editions—including Monopoly Jr. to help my kids learn to play. There is so much more to Monopoly than meets the eye. Did you know that people actually have determined the different probabilities within the game? There are even strategies found online to help you learn to win. Yes, I could spend a lot of time playing Monopoly.

3. Sweepstakes: Monica and I were talking this morning about McDonald’s Monopoly which led to a conversation about “Sweepstaking“. Wouldn’t it fun to spend time entering sweepstakes…and winning? There is even a newsletter out there for people to learn where the sweepstakes are.

4. Fishing: As Will is getting to age that he wants to go fishing with Daddy—I really would love to devote more time to this hobby and enjoy it with him. We certainly had a great visit to Brass Pro Shops a couple of weeks ago—now to actually take him to the local fishing hole!

5. You know…I’d also really like to learn to paint…

I am amazed when people talk about having nothing to do, or that nothing interests them. I find that I don’t have near the time to do what I want to do and fight for every minute.

I have reduced my hobbies down to Comic Books and Genealogy. I could include other things very easily, but I choose to limit myself so I can focus on what I truly enjoy.

Maybe one day, I will be able to expand into other areas:

So, Five Hobbies that I would do if I had time to really focus on them would be:

Hot Wheels Collecting: This site I found this week. I love Hot Wheels cars and my son is already amassing a collection. But to take it to the next level to collect and preserve?—oh, that’s a different story!

Plastic Models: This would be a great deployment hobby. Lots of time on my hands—if I had the space and the patience to go with the time.

Yo-Yo’s: I’ve always enjoyed yo-yo’s but to get to be really good you need to practice. I’ve tried, but I haven’t taken it seriously enough to call it a hobby.

Photography: I took a class several years ago and I enjoy taking pictures—especially film. Right now, this hobby is simply centered on taking pictures of the kids.

Digital Film Making: I love to shoot, edit, and produce. But at one hour of editing for a minute of video, time again is the preventative aspect.

There is so much that one can do—just take what you enjoy and there is a hobby to go with it somewhere.

One of my favorite escapes is to go somewhere to read. I was thinking about this today as I was preparing to take some time this weekend to read some comic books. When I was in Germany, I would sometimes go into the On Post Coffee shop. But, I haven’t quite found that place for me yet. Some of the places I do enjoy are:

1. Starbucks: The standard default position for finding a place to read. Good coffee and, most of the time, plenty of space. I found a Starbucks right outside Fort Lee, VA that used to be an old bank—which is funny too me, but hey it is a good use of a good building. The café has plenty of space and comfortable seating. It is my top choice, but I may look to go to the closer one for tomorrow’s reading.

2. Panera Bread: Great place to go. Good seating and good snacks—their bagels are the best! There is typically more room her and tables to spead oyut if I need to.

3. Library: Nice and quiet—no coffee.

4. Park: We have some very nice parks to sit and read in the early mornings. The temperature has been in the high 80s, so it is nearly unbearable in the afternoon. But they are great places to get out and enjoy a book while outside.

5. Home: We have a wonderful place right here at home. We have a sun room built outside the living room which has become a great place for me to unwind or wke up to start the day. This is particularly wonderful when it is raining. The biggest problem here is that I tend get too comfortable and go to sleep.

I’m going to try the museum cafe one day…

Since I’ve been playing more tennis lately, I have already developed a pet peeve—trash.

I do not belong to a private club, because my fitness budget goes to the YMCA. The YMCA branch that I visit, I visit the very nice Public and High School tennis courts close by. These are free courts and relatively well maintained—especially the high school courts.

It is frustrating then that I continually see trash on the court. The practice of leaving the trash is lazy, inconsiderate, and arrogant.

Here we have access to these nice tennis courts but some bozos fail to do their part and clean up after themselves.

Why is it so hard to pick up after yourself when you are finished playing?

The other day I visited the local high school court and there were old tennis balls, cans, and Gatorade bottles lying around. The high school, most likely, has janitors that pick up the court on a regular basis and I had just visited the court a couple of days before—but it over the weekend the court was a mess.

It is mind boggling to think that someone who is inside a fence, who must pass the trash can on his or her way out, cannot pick up their trash and throw it away!

So, if you play on a public court—or private for that matter—clean it up!

I opened my Google reader tonight to find that my “Hurricane Folder” had 17 new messages. This was another reminder that the 2010 Hurricane season is upon us. So it is time to dust off those tracker sites to be ready for the next hurricane to hit the radar.

National Hurricane Center: The official National Weather Service forecasts and data.

Central Florida Hurricane Center: A very good and trusted site with graphics and commentary. I’ve found it useful for several years.

Accuweather.com Hurricane Page: Accuweather has become my choice for weather information on the internet—with readable forecasts and analysis sometimes down to the local level. For the hurricane forecast there are video updates and graphics. This has become a top choice for hurricane season.

Crown Weather Hurricane Page: This site is new to me, but the information is all in one place—which is helpful. I’ll be interested to see how much I use it.

So, if you track hurricanes—these are what I use to keep up with approaching storms. If you track online—I’d love to know what you use.

I wrote several months ago that would try my hardest to write every Tuesday and Thursday. But this past Thursday and today’s Tuesday—writing is definitely NOT the priority.

Thursday—27 May 2010, was my 10^th Anniversary.

Today, Tuesday, June 01, 2010, was the day we brought our newest and fourth child home from the hospital. She was born on Sunday. All of the details on this and other family events are or will be posted on Monica’s blog.

So, back to the priority of the day…it’s feeding time. See you Thursday!

This week’s High Points were:

Monica and celebrated our Tenth Wedding Anniversary on Thursday. Time has definitely flown by in our little lifetime adventure. Two deployments, three kids, one more on the way, and seven houses have made us experienced and more in love and dependant on one another through it all.

Because of the anniversary, I took four days off work to spend with the family. I work on Sunday with in-briefs and hospital visits, so technically it was a four day weekend. It was good to have four days with the family. The weather has been wonderful, so it was nice to get out with the kids. I also got so pretty good workouts in.

Early in the week, I bought Storm Warning, by Billy Graham. I recommend this book to anyone who is looking at the world wondering where is all of this hardship leading us. While I’m enjoying the book—I’m enjoying the sense of focus that Dr. Graham’s example is to me. It was also enjoyable to remember this week that Monica and I went to the Nashville 2000 Billy Graham Crusade on our honeymoon. This reminder shows me the long lasting impact Billy Graham has made on my life—not to mention the entire shelf of books by or about him that I own.

Monica and I were watching French Open Tonight presented by Lacoste. The fact that the Locoste alligator was front and center in the broadcast led to a discussion about whatever happened to Izod.

Back in the 1980’s the “Izod shirt” was the cream of the crop in shirts, along with the “Polo shirt”. I remember that it clearly had the little alligator on it. Monica disagreed, she said that the alligator was the symbol for Locoste.

So being stubborn, I consulted Wikipedia to prove my point.

I discovered that we were both right—in a way.

Wikipedia reads:

Izod of London would become most notable for its pairing with the Lacoste shirt company from 1952–1993….”Izod of London” became a brand known simply as “Izod Lacoste”. While the shirts were equally Izod&Lacoste, they became abbreviated and popularized as “Izod” shirts (which leads to the ongoing misunderstanding that the famous “Crocodile” is the “Izod” trademark.)

So, yes, Monica was technically right saying that the alligator was the brand logo for Lacoste. But, I am also “culturally right” because I remember the shirts an “Izod” shirt—along with everyone else.

However, we are both wrong because it is a Crocodile…not an alligator.

Who knew?!?