Joseph F. Radosevich

I thought I had outgrown my largest kettlebells a couple of months ago. I made plans to buy a larger one. It's kind of a good problem to have, but it is an expensive problem. I delayed buying one and discovered that I don't have to have a bigger one just yet. I was using Pat Flynn's strength-focused training plan in his book Strong On! I got stronger so that my largest kettlebells weren't challenging enough. When I decided to delay buying a bigger kettlebell (at my wife's urging), I tried another plan from his book focused on building muscle. Otherwise, I would have skipped that plan. Because the rep ranges are different, I couldn't use my largest bells and had to go down a couple of levels. Now, I'm getting a ton out of my medium-sized bells.  The training plans in the book are called Strength, Muscle, Conditioning/Fat Loss, and Mobility. There are workouts each week from each category, but the emphasis changes. You use the lowest reps and heaviest weight ...

At my conference last month, Dr. Hershael York warned against using bad Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic word studies in sermons. His lesser point was to preach simple sermons that highlight the bible and not the preacher. He encouraged us to trust the Bible and not our cleverness. I've been thinking about that advice and what that means. It means telling the structure of the sermon during the sermon. This is probably my biggest piece of advice for all preachers. Your sermon will improve if you make your outline obvious. I never resent a preacher making point or outline too obvious. I do get bored or confused when I have no idea what the point is or where we are in the sermon. This applies to teachers as well. Make your outline obvious so that people can hang your explanations, illustrations, and applications on the structure of the lesson.

I traveled to Louisville last weekend for the Greek and Hebrew for Life Conference hosted at my alma mater, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. They do conferences called Southern Academy for alums and friends. This is the second time they've done Greek and Hebrew for Life. Here are a few thoughts: I appreciated that they focused on using biblical languages in ministry and devotion. Ultimately, ministry should come from devotion and lead to devotion. Dr. Betts' breakout on Hebrew noun morphology was amazing and changed my life. Other students in the class were blown away too. I went to his next breakout on verb morphology, and it was such a help too. A student in that class also was exclaiming about how his explanations made so much sense. The best place to learn Hebrew right now is probably Boyce College with Dr. Adam Howell. What he's doing is incredible by combining morphology, reading the Old Testament, hearing, speaking, and reading. It is so good. I loved being...

This last Sunday, I finished praying through the Psalms during our church's Sunday morning service. Every week, I pray a pastoral prayer. I usually pray through a Psalm as a way to keep my prayers fresh. I use the language and themes as inspiration and pray them for our church, community, and world. Most people don't know that I'm praying a specific passage. I've only mentioned it to a few people. I started praying through the Psalm over 3 years ago instead of finding a Scripture to pray each week. I know that it took over 3 years because sometimes I have been gone, other Sundays I pray something else that is on my heart, and I prayed each stanza  of Psalm 119 on separate Sundays (that's 22).

Fiction Leave It to Psmith , P.G. Wodehouse. This is such a funny book. Wodehouse is a master at storytelling and writing.  Miss Buncle's Book , D.E. Stevenson. Emma recommended both of these fiction books. This is a fun, sweet, well-told story about a woman who wrote a book about the people in her town. They find out, and their lives (and her life ) are turned upside down. Non-Fiction The Air We Breathe , Glen Scrivener. This won several awards a few years ago, so I grabbed it when I saw it on a free rack. It is so good about how the world we live in is shaped by Jesus. It's written mostly for those who reject Christianity, but it bolstered my faith and reminded and taught me how world-changing Jesus is. 100 Heirloom Tomatoes for the American Garden , Carolyn Male. Tomatoes are my hobby. I loved this. I learned a few things but mostly just enjoy hearing how other tomato enthusiasts garden. Current Reading Knowing Christ , Mark Jones. I've had tears in my eyes twice this we...

I read a couple of blogs that show their harvest every Monday and describe conditions and varieties. I can't do a Monday post each week, but I thought I'd share 3 varieties of veggies and flowers from our garden in June.  Top left is Fiesta Time hollyhocks . They are shorter than normal varieties because they top out at 4 feet. I love it because they look like little pink fireworks from across the backyard. The lower leaves at the base are pretty ugly, so I have a some palm sedge that I hope fills that in and makes it prettier. Top right is National Pickling cucumbers . I love this variety because it produces tons of blocky cukes intended for pickles. You can eat them fresh, but we have another variety for that. We usually have to throw away some cukes every year because we get so many. We may sell these at the farmer's market near here later in the year. Last year, Emma told me to pull up the plants early because she was sick of all the cukes and had made enough pickles to...

When I'm looking for garden info, I use a Google search trick to weed through all the bad information out there.  type "site:.edu" and then the search terms. Example: "site:.edu how to prune peppers for better yield". The .edu limitation means that I only get results from university-based websites, and this usually means university extension centers. The internet is loaded with bad information--especially in the gardening world. AI is creeping into everything and whole sites are written by AI bots to trick people into listening to them. Searching just anywhere might end up showing you bad information and advice.  You can use this trick when searching to limit the results to a top level domain like I did in the example above, but you can also use it to limit your searches to a specific website or series of websites.  We're all going to need to learn how to use our technology better to stay a step ahead of scammers and bad actors.

  I published a new article on worship leadership and planning in smaller churches. It is called 5 Guidelines for Leading Worship in a Smaller Church . Equipthecalled.com is a website of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and they asked for submissions that fit what and how I write. One connection is that my dad graduated from SWBTS and I attended for 3 semesters. I wrote it in April, but it took a while to publish.  Worship leadership is a major challenge for smaller churches and the pastors that I have talked to. I hope that this helps.

We took a staycation which had us busy and have a busy month ahead, so I wanted to take a moment to do a quick update. On our staycation, we went to local history sites, a local zoo, a bowling alley, and for ice cream We also played new board games. The Lincoln Home in Springfield was probably the best site that we went to. That same day, we went to the Old State Capital (and saw a naturalization ceremony), Lincoln's tomb, and the Illinois State Military Museum. It was a fun day. On vacation, I usually read Young Adult or Juvenile Fiction. I loved A Single Shard . I also read Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson and Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett.  Our garden is doing great! The weather has been perfect. We have enough salad vegetables to eat that as often as we want. I really like the Purple Roden lettuce that we are trying this year. I enjoy the purple color in the garden. We also have Bright Lights rainbow chard. Radishes (Roxanne) did well too. I just put out more seed. Our herbs ...

You don't need weed cloth. You need thicker mulch. I've written on this before, but I see it all the time. It's in parks and at homes. The recommendations are all over YouTube.  Here is why you don't need weed cloth: Weeds most often grow because the seeds blow in on the wind, get stirred up to the surface by being disturbed, get carried in with the mulch, or travel on the bottoms of shoes. You can't prevent weed seeds from coming in. Weed cloth only prevents seeds that are below it from germinating. If the weeds start growing on top of it, then it cannot help them. I learned from a gardener/florist/nursery owner years ago that you need thick mulch to choke out the seeds that are below. You pick the handful of weeds that grow on the top. As the mulch breaks down, you have to replace it and smother the seeds that have moved in. *This applies mainly to flower beds, not to the base of trees. You still need a layer of mulch that is 2-3 inches thick and pulled back away ...

Don't talk more about pastor work than you talk about Jesus. I'm concerned that there are many pastors and church leaders who are more concerned with getting [fill in the blank] right than they talk about Jesus. They are more concerned with growth, church polity, leadership skills, church discipline, or cultural issues than with the beauty of the king of kings. They are right theologically. Their methods are perfect (as they can make them). Their churches are pure (supposedly). But they never talk about the head of the church. It is a real danger to be distracted by good things or tools. Many of the things that distract us are good and relevant such as church structure, theology, or cultural issues. We can't ignore God's word under the excuse of "just loving Jesus." However, if we don't ever talk about how wonderful Jesus is, then we've lost our way. That goes for parents. Do we talk more about our kids' future careers or their to-do list than we d...

An extended family member teased me about why I introduce my kids to music like The Beatles, Eric Clapton, and Coldplay. Why would I not limit our music to Christian music? Because the whole world belongs to the Lord. It's his world and the beauty, truth, and goodness in it all come from him. It can be marred by sin, but beauty comes from the Lord wherever we find it. That goes for nature, literature, art, and music. It's all his. It also all points to the  beauty, truth, and goodness that come from him. In the same way that all the sun's rays come from the sun, all the beauty of the world points back to the one who is beautiful. We do have to be discerning in some of the content that we introduce the kids to. There are some things that are obscene and never appropriate. There are some things I want to help them think about rather than just keep it off limits to our eyes and conversation like a nude Greek kouros in an art museum. There are some topics best left for married ...

Pat Flynn's book Strong On is the best book I've read on fitness. I picked it up and have been using the workouts this winter and spring. What I love: It's fast. Warm-up. Workout for 20 minutes. Stretch. Move on. It's simple. The book explains just enough, but not too much. It's flexible. Even though it is simple, the workouts and the schedules combine for enormous variety and cover most goals. It's got one tool. Part of being simple is the fact that these workouts use just some kettlebells (and occasionally push-ups). I have a lot of equipment, but that can make it hard because I have to choose which equipment, which exercise, which rep range,etc.  It's comprehensive. This covers all the bases. In my workouts this week, I will cover strength, endurance, mobility, and fat loss. I've read a lot of fitness books. This is the most user-friendly.  I'm not recommending it because I get money for it. I'm not a referral website (even though I'm not...

 One of my New Year goals was to do one challenge each month. January--I relearned cursive. It is so much fun that I use it all the time now. I write with fountain pens and cursive is much better with a fountain pen. February--I took a photo every day. Most days were a little more artistic than normal. I didn't enjoy this challenge as much. March--I checked out a couple of learn-to-draw books from the library and drew one picture each day. I focused on learning new skills. It was awesome and took my doodling to a new level. April--I'm learning to judge temperatures in Celsius. After 6 days, it's not so hard.

When I have a choice of several things to read, I often choose the shortest book first. I adapted this idea from Dave Ramsey's debt snowball. The reading snowball means that you choose the shortest book in your list first and then move on to the next shortest book until you go through the whole stack, shelf, or list. This is a psychological trick that I use to help me feel like I'm making good progress through a list or shelf of books. This keeps me from feeling overwhelmed which the books that I plan to read.  I read a 700 page commentary and realized that I had neglected a lot of other reading while I was going through that one. I had a list of three commentaries that I wanted to read next, and started with the short one. I don't always use this approach. Sometimes, you should read the most relevant or important book. For example, I'm starting a 700 page biography of Abraham Lincoln tonight. I'm also reading The Lord of the Rings right now. Those books are import...