Joseph F. Radosevich

Over lunch recently, a church planter in my region described his difficulty finding a worship leader. They use YouTube videos after two years of gathering because they can't find someone to lead them. At his previous church, they also had trouble finding a worship leader. He told me that students at the nearby Christian college were either too busy or were interning at the larger churches in the area. We talked about why it is so hard to find a worship leader: fewer people play instruments, etc. He's not the first planter that I know of who used videos for worship leading. Smaller churches and rural churches too have a hard time finding a quality worship leader. I grew up in larger churches with multiple pastors and staff members. There were always multiple talented instrumentalists and usually a full-time worship leader. Quality was never an issue. I grew up in the time of the worship wars when churches were trying to figure out their musical style. Whatever style was chosen, ...

I really enjoy David Pierce's opening sentence in his newsletter--The Installer-- each week. It is a description of what he did, learned, enjoyed, watched, read, etc. that week. I think about it as one good sentence--interesting and informative. I often find articles I want to watch or topics that I too am interested in.  Here is mine for this week: I experimented with new hand-lettering fonts for my journal, read about gardening in a changing climate , revisited High School Musical with my kids, and thrifted for a new sport coat (and other random but cool gifts).

This year I assigned a my older kids a task for their school. I gave them a blank notebook to gather ideas for jobs and careers in fields related to their interests. I got the idea after a conversation with someone who told me that he wished he had known the range of jobs available to him. When he was younger, he wanted to work at NASA. He wished that he had known that NASA had many more jobs than just astronauts. He ended up in chemistry and wished he had known that NASA hires chemists. My 7th grader, 9th grader, and 11th grader are now gathering ideas based on what fields sound interesting. I told them that I don't care if they are interested in the specific job; I just want them to begin to explore how many different kinds of opportunities there are in fields that might be interesting. I told them about all the jobs I noticed in the Missionary: Obeying the Great Commission documentary that I watched. I noticed that the movie required a writer, photographer, and editor. I also r...

When we moved to Wisconsin, I told people that I wanted to pastor there long enough to eat from the apple trees in our yard. I meant it. I wanted to be there for 10 years. Events in the denomination outside my control forced me to resign and we had to move after just two ripe apples from one tree. Both trees became special to me though. We knew enough to plant what we liked to eat and that our trees needed to be compatible for pollination, so we ordered Honeycrisp and Pink Lady. A few weeks later, we found out that those trees were unavailable and that the orchard had replaced them with other trees. I knew that I didn't like the replacements, so I was forced to branch out and order trees I didn't know. I had to decide based on the catalog descriptions.  I landed on Suncrisp and Scarlet Crush. Suncrisp was the offspring of a famous but fickle apple called Cox's Orange Pippen that was meant to be more stable. It was the only tree we had that produced, and it became a favorite...

The Puritan Treasures for Today series by Reformation Heritage. My wife has several in the series, and I picked one up after hearing the series editor explain why they lightly edited and rereleased them. The reason they lightly edited and rereleased them is because they want the truth of the series to get out and be accessible to a wider audience. I was curious and ended up loved Triumphing Over Sinful Fear  by John Flavel. I plan to start another one in the series soon. A lot of people would be helped by that short book (I'm always looking for short, helpful books to recommend and giveaway). It is short and clear enough that I can recommend it widely. Aeropress for coffee. I just bought my third Aeropress in around 15-17 years. I have several other methods of brewing coffee but nothing is as forgiving and versatile as the Aeropress. I can make a good cup of black coffee for the morning and a good iced coffee in the afternoon. I have several gadgets that make the Aeropress even mor...

I was in my twenties when I started as a trainer. I had some success and had happy clients. Now that I'm in my forties, I see that work a little differently, even though I still follow the same broad programming I did then. One thing that I think differently about is that I would emphasize baby steps more than I did. What kind of baby steps? The beginning and basic parts of each exercise pattern. Learning to hold yourself in a push-up position, handing from a pull-up bar, etc. Doing the part that you can do and working on that until you can do the whole exercise. I didn't encourage and require baby steps because so much of the personal trainer's job is sales--convincing people to start and continue with training. I was always afraid that all my clients would leave and then I would have no income. I would modify push-ups to doing them on suspension straps like the TRX instead of having them work on basic shoulder, stomach, and wrist stability. I would try to figure out how t...

One of my new year's goals was to practice playing the cajon for 20 hours this year. I finished in May. Here's what, why, and how it went. I have always loved drums, but I never learned. I never had a set around to practice on or books, videos, or drumming teachers. I did learn to play the guitar, but I have always preferred drum/percussion. My favorite drum sounds are from drumming on a 5 gallon bucket and from the cajon. The cajon is a wooden box with snare drum strings behind the front panel. The sound it makes changes depending on where and how you hit it. There are three basic sounds that it can make. I saw this TED talk last year from Josh Kaufman on how it only take 20 hours of deliberate practice to learn any skill to a competent level. He wrote a book on the same topic: The First 20 Hours. He argues that most of us aren't aiming to be world class which might take 10,000 hours. He gave a few guidelines such as identifying the most important skills involved and prio...

I turn 42 this Friday. I still remember celebrating my 13th birthday at Dairy Queen and being disappointed that the kids menu was no longer for me. I've always liked my birthday, but hated getting older.  I've been thinking about health and fitness again this year. I've written many times about the struggle that pastors and their wives face with weight and health. The constant stress that pastors live with is indistinguishable to your body from physical stress, and I believe that makes the body store fat and refuse to let go of it. This year has been a challenge for this pastor as I turn the corner to middle age. Neither elbow will forgive me for doing pull-ups anymore. My knees can be gimpy if I'm not careful during heavy squats. I've gained 20 lbs over the last 3 years while I've averaged 4 or more workouts per week those 3 years. I've tried all sorts of diet restrictions and workout plans. My weight has crept up very slowly (just .12 lbs per week), but I...

I first read Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren's How to Read a Book  25 years ago. I was finishing high school, and I returned to it occasionally for the book list in the back or to revisit some section. I thought I understood it and even used the reading principles. I hadn't reread the whole thing though. I reread most of it this spring and realized how much I misunderstood. I was seventeen the first time I read the book; I actually read it twice that year and took extensive notes in the front and back pages-my attempt to practice their method. I just hadn't read it enough. I didn't know enough. I also missed the section on the aims of reading. Adler and Van Doren are known for their levels of reading. Their aims for reading are the critical part, but it's a short section that is easy to miss.  Levels Elementary-simple reading straight through. Inspectional-15 minutes of systematic skimming to get the gist of the book. Analytical -careful reading with analysis a...

I usually do these in bullet form. I'm going to try this in paragraph form today. We've been watching the World Cup for the last two weeks. The knockout stages are the most fun. I picked Ivory Coast to win. Most of our family want a country outside of Europe or South America to win. Only Europeans and South Americans have ever won it. I finished 3 books this month.  Man of Sorrows, King of Glory by Jonty Rhodes is a great book on the person, natures, offices, and work of Christ the Son. He organized it around the humiliation of Christ (taking on humanity) and the exaltation of Christ (rising after the ascension to the highest place). It is a short but strong book. I would pair it with Mark Jones' Knowing Christ .  The Glamour of Grammar by Roy Peter Clark. Clark is a good writing coach, but he crossed in this book from crass to vulgar. I don't understand why he had to be so vulgar when explaining grammar. I threw it away.  Alisse Califry by Elizabeth Radosevich. I re...

I can mark every four years since 1998 by the World Cup. I was 14 that year. It was a big deal that we played Iran in the group stage. The USA team didn't do well; the coach tried out a strange 3-6-1 formation that I've never seen since. I was hooked on soccer though. I could tell you about the players and events of each World Cup since then. I watched the 2014 along with my kids but they were 5, 3, and 1--Kyle Beckerman and Mix Diskerud were their favorite players because they had cool hairstyles. They remember the 2018 WC in Russia, and 2022 in Qatar. We have inside jokes and stories we tell of the different tournaments. Some years they get excited by the yellow and red cards or the headers. In 2022 we made our own highlights of the great moments (those videos are priceless). This year I took my four oldest to the St. Louis Arch for a Watch Party/Soccer Party hosted by STL City FC. It was 94 degrees and so sunny. We played small-sided games while the organizers had a projecti...

It was the first thing I remember writing. I was in first grade.  I described a recent dream. We had a short assignment; this was the last year I was in public school before I was homeschooled through high school. I could barely spell, so I'm sure it was hard to read (I also wrote a story that year about "rassling" with my brother). I had recently had a nightmare that my family was living in a wing of our church. We slept in one of the children's classes. The hallway was yellow, and my classes were often on the other end. One night there was something suspicious going on. My dad went to find out what was going on, but he was in his underwear. This dream was at least a year before we moved to the church's parsonage two blocks away and really did have someone break into my dad's truck--which was right outside my window-- and take all his work tools. That was the whole story that I wrote for the assignment: my dad walking through a dark church in his underwear to...

Some of my kids and I are doing a challenge in the month of June to only read books that we are already own. The rules is that we have to read or reread books that are in our house or that are in my office--no buying of books or reading library books. I don't remember who came up with the idea, but something like it had been bouncing around in my head for the past several months.  We have the blessing of a good library near us that can do interlibrary loan, so we get just about any book that we need. We also budget money so that we can buy books each month. I often buy books for $4 to $6 off of eBay. I'm also given stacks of books as a pastor--from conferences or from other pastors that are clearing out their libraries.  This is a chance for us to just read and reread the things that we have. Since I may only read two or three books this month, I might extend the challenge a while longer. I'm reading Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose because the Lewis and Clark expedit...

I've noticed a trend that many writers are moving to newsletters away from blogs and magazine-style websites. I have several concerns about that and reasons that I still write for my blog instead of writing a newsletter. One of the downsides to newsletters is that it means it is harder to find good things to read on the internet--especially free writing. Everything is sliced up and behind many different paywalls and subscription funnels. Blogs were free and RSS readers gathered them together easily. Even though you might have to buy or subscribe to a newspaper or a magazine in the past, you got a lot of different writers in one place for a very cheap price. Even mid-sized newspapers and magazines had several good writers. Now, good writing (and editing) is more fragmented than ever. I also have concerns about how newsletters turn readers into a commodity. It eliminates the relationship that a writer and a reader can have. I wonder if it affects your writing for you to be getting yo...

Many school children used cheap fountain pens at school 60 years ago. Something like a Shaeffer School Pen. I suggest that every person should get a cheap fountain pen. Nice fountain pens aren't for everyone. Nice fountain pens aren't even for most people. I have several cheap fountain pens, a couple of $20 fountain pens, and one very nice fountain pen that I got as part of the inventory when I bought a friend's fountain pen business. I'm not in the fountain pen business anymore. I sold out all my inventory and did not replenish. I found that my favorite fountain pens are the cheap ones. They're the ones that I enjoy using all the time and carry with me most of the time.  What makes them fun?  I don't worry about them. I haven't broken any of them. If I did, it wouldn't be a big problem. I can carry them with me all the time because of this. They are easy to slide into my my notebook cover. They write smoothly. They are even some of my smoothest pens, an...